Australia’s national accounts showed soft real GDP growth of 0.8% for the September 2024 quarter.  While household income growth was strong, consumer spending was softer. Year-on-year nominal consumer spending rose 4.1%, or 0.4% in real terms, which is below long-term trends. Households lifted their savings in the September quarter with more than half the tax cuts saved. While spending was soft, the strength of income growth and stored up savings make us positive that retail sales growth will continue improving from here.

The link provides a presentation associated with a webinar we held. The webinar addressed our updated outlook for retail sales and the drivers of a recovery in retail spending. In the presentation, we answer the question of whether consumers will spend or save their income growth, quantifying the impact of rate cuts and tax cuts, which retail categories we expect to outperform in FY25e, and a comparison of Australia with offshore markets.

The link provides a presentation associated with a webinar we held. The webinar addressed the updated outlook for retail sales and key drivers that could trigger an improvement in spending. In the presentation, we provide an update on the outlook for retail sales, covering feedback on recent trading and expectations for FY25e. We will address which categories have the best potential for volume recovery and how they are navigating price disinflation. We will also address the risk from interest rates on retail. The presentation also includes insights about retailer profitability, inventory levels, and expectations for retail trading at the FY24e results in August.

Australia’s national accounts reveals that income growth remains strong and consumers are spending more money outside of retail. For the March 2024 quarter, household income rose 5.1% and total consumer spending was up 5.9%, whereas retail spending only rose 2.5%. Households are saving very little of their income, a reflection of stored up savings from the past four years, but also a reminder that consumers will be more value conscious. We expect similar trends to constrain a retail recovery in FY25e as households allocate spending elsewhere and lower retail price inflation dampens overall revenue.

The link provides a presentation associated with a webinar we held. The webinar addressed the updated outlook for retail sales and key drivers that could trigger an improvement in spending. In the presentation, we also address the outlook for interest rates, price inflation and population growth. While tax cuts will help sales later in 2024, lower retail price inflation, higher unemployment and a shift of spend to travel and automobiles will all limit the upside in industry sales growth. The presentation also includes insights about retailer profitability, inventory levels, and sales trajectory following results from the 6 months to December 2023.

We have updated our retail sales outlook, with modestly higher forecasts for 2024. We forecast 2.7% growth (up from 2.5% previously). We have lifted our non-food forecasts, but lowered food & liquor forecasts. The prevailing sales trends are very soft but should improve in the back-half of calendar 2024 as income tax cuts flow through. We only see a modest pick up because lower retail price inflation will constrain overall sales growth in FY25e.

Australia’s national accounts highlights an improvement in income growth as the headwinds from higher interest rates and taxes eases back. For the December 2023 quarter, household income rose 4.3% and spending was also up 4.3%. We are seeing a gradual drop in the share retail has of total spending and has further to go in our view given outsized spending over the past four years.

Australian retail has had a difficult 2023 with below trend sales growth of 3.1%. We expect another challenging year with growth of 2.5% for 2024. While a weaker year, it will be a tale of two halves with softer growth in the January-June period and better growth for July-December. Moreover, we expect slowing sales in at-home food & liquor and a sharper slowdown in cafes, restaurants and takeaway food. We expect an improving rate of growth for non-food retail. While tax cuts will help sales later in 2024, lower retail price inflation, higher unemployment and a shift of spend to travel will all limit the upside in industry sales growth.

Australians saved a lot of money during COVID-19. They saved $246 billion more than usual in fact. Bank data shows that households have now started drawing on that savings buffer. Is this good news or bad news? Do all demographics have savings buffers? We use demographic data to answer these questions and find that all income groups (lowest to highest) have some buffers. Amongst age cohorts, the groups aged 25 or older have saved more. Younger people have few buffers. The excess savings will result in a gradual slowdown in retail spending, potentially milder than many fear. The impact of higher interest rates will hurt higher income households the most as they carry more debt relative to income. Those over 65 are net beneficiaries of higher rates. Given data on spending by demographics, liquor and food at-home are likely to outperform. Dining out and travel may suffer when higher income earners pull back on spending.

Australian retailers have begun to experience a slowdown in retail spending and it’s going to get tougher over the next 4-6 months. We expect FY24e retail industry sales to rise 1.5%, a slowdown from 9.0% growth in FY23e. While this may sound gloomy, a glass half full perspective is overall sales may not slow any further from the trends as at June 2023. The glass half-empty view is that we may not return towards trend sales growth until 2025. The willingness of households to tap into excess savings shapes our view that the downturn will be shallow. We also note that food inflation will prop up that sector until early 2024. The path of price inflation is likely to have a greater bearing on sales outcomes more so than retail volumes, which are already in decline.