Australian consumers to spend more on Christmas this year

Australian shoppers will spend more than $50 billion in retail stores over the Christmas trading period from November 15 to December 24, 2017, according to the Australian Retailers Association (ARA) and Roy Morgan Research Annual Pre-Christmas Sales Predictions.

Russell Zimmerman, ARA executive director, said although the Australian retail industry has been struggling over the last few months, the ARA and Roy Morgan have tipped Australian consumers to spend 2.8% more on Christmas this year, compared to 2016.

“While the latest retail trade figures have shown a considerable decline, our combined Christmas sales forecast with Roy Morgan demonstrate that Christmas sales will be a little bit better than recent figures. Unfortunately, this estimate is still well below the 4-5% growth that retailers would like to see this Christmas,” Zimmerman said.

“As online retailing continues to grow, we predict online gift purchases to increase by 3.96%, and expect Australian shoppers to purchase most of their gifts online this year.”

Food and liquor retailers will also see a substantial trade this Christmas with the ARA and Roy Morgan predicting a 3.27% increase from 2016 sales.

With the Christmas season centred around quality time with family and friends in Australia, restaurant and café retailers will also see an increase in sales this year as the hospitability category is expected to grow by a modest 2.89%.

“Although we have seen retail sales slowly decline across all categories, we believe Christmas will see this year’s trade improve for many Australian retailers,” Zimmerman said.