In what seems an impossible feat, the ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) has reported that Australia has recorded it’s highest monthly retail turnover since it they started tracking it in 1982.

On the surface, this seems to represent a strong and robust retail result with a rise of 8.5 percent in March (8.2 seasonally adjusted). With this result, online sales represented 7.1 percent of the total sales, an impressive figure in itself.

Unfortunately, the result was not a true representation of the economy neither was it spread across all areas of retail. In fact, the result was due to the Coronavirus and the panic buying that resulted from it. The big rises were mostly in supermarkets with panic buying of essential groceries such as toilet paper, rise, pasta and cleaning equipment. Unfortunately there were big drops in cafés, takeaways, food services, pubs, clothing and restaurants.

The official figures from the ABS show that there was a astronomical 24.1 per cent rise in food retailing, other retailing was 16.6 percent and household goods retailing was 9.1 per cent. On the other end of the spectrum, cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services was down a massive 22.9 per cent. Clothing, footwear and other similar retailing was down 22.6 percent. Department stores were down 8.9 per cent.

The big winners during this time was Coles and Woolworths and other supermarkets. The other winners are big online stores such as Catch. Use a Catch coupon to save on your purchase!