The festive season will ramp-up for retailers in the next few weeks. The consumers’ embrace of Black Friday has resulted in November sales now representing a bigger share of the annual calendar in Australia compared with the US, UK and NZ. The timing and high base makes it difficult to see a strong festive sales period in 2025. We forecast non-food sales to rise 4.0%, a slight dip on recent trends. While the sales backdrop will be decent, the risk is retailers discount earlier this year given higher inventory for some. We highlight Accent Group and Lovisa as retailers with elevated inventory levels.

The downgrade by Treasury Wines to its FY26e outlook will raise questions about the path for Penfolds, quality of Americas earnings and changes that pending CEO Sam Fischer may implement. The drop in Penfolds growth is understandable given “crackdowns” by the Chinese government on official banqueting. The deeper concern is the reset in Americas luxury margins where the contribution outside DAOU looks small.

Australian retail sales only rose 3.1% in August 2025, a slowdown from the 5% trendline seen in the previous three months. The slowdown was broad-based, albeit café & restaurant spending remained strong at 6.4% growth. While the slowdown may raise some concern, we see the sustainable trend level around 4% growth and hence a softer month for August and September is likely. Consumers are bound to wait till Black Friday to spend up again.

This chart pack provides subscribers with insights about the retail operating environment and outlook for sales, gross margins and operating leverage. The chart pack has been compiled post the FY25 reporting season across the retail market providing fresh insights about the sector.

Premier Investments reported FY25 Retail EBIT of $183 million, down 24%. FY25 sales performance was divergent for Peter Alexander and Smiggle with the same trend continuing it is trading update. We downgrade EPS by 3.4% and 4.5% in FY26e and FY27e given store closures and continued sales declines at Smiggle. We have also lowered our gross margin given commentary about a competitive market. Cost discipline remains a theme at Premier. Earnings growth will be delivered in FY26e but beyond that success will be determined by a recovery at Smiggle and the success of the Peter Alexander expansion to the UK.

Myer reported an FY25 EBIT of $140 million, down 14% and inclusive of six-months from Apparel Brand. On a pro-forma basis Myer Group EBIT for FY25 was $174 million, down 30%. Sales trends are showing modest improvement. We expect flat gross margins from continued promotional pressure. We forecast cost growth of 3.6% to result in EBIT down 2% for FY26e (on a pro-forma basis). Shareholders will need patience. Myer will need to deliver on synergies which are largely expected in FY27e.

dusk reported FY25 sales of $137 million, up 8.7%. Like-for-like (LFL) sales growth of 7.1% meant a 2H25 LFL sales growth of 3.6%. The trading update for the first eight weeks saw total sales down 1.5%, cycling 16% growth in same period last year. We reference the two-year stack in our forecast for LFL sales growth of 4.2% for FY26e. With limited store openings and growth in LFL sales we forecast FY26e revenue forecasts of $144 million, up 4.9%.

Noumi reported total sales of $595 million, up 1.0% (vs MSTe +0.6%). While the Plant-based Milk division sales grew 2.5%, the Dairy and Nutritionals division sales were flat. The Plant-based Milk division sales were led by the performance of the Milklab branded product which grew 6.7% in the year, with strong sales growth in the retail channel.

Metcash’s 18-week AGM trading update highlighted a slowdown in sales. For the first 7 weeks, group sales were up 4.7% and the next 11 weeks, to the end of August 2025, sales dropped 1.2%. The biggest contributors to the slowdown were declining tobacco sales (-34%) and annualising Superior Foods acquisition (now trending at 2.7% growth). Metcash’s underlying results show sales trends slightly lower than industry growth other than liquor. Hardware sales trends remain sluggish, albeit improving over recent months.

Bapcor reported a 4% decline in EBITDA for FY25. The decline in both the Trade and NZ division’s profit margins was notable in the second-half. We expect the company to have another decline in sales for 1H26e given some store closures and a more competitive environment in Australia and NZ. The NZ segment’s margins look to be resetting lower following a COVID-19 peak. Even so, margins are still healthy relative to peers. The company’s indication that profit will skew to 2H26e is vague. The shape of earnings suggests the profit recovery begins in FY27e.