Aa Case Study
ISSN 1834–4720
retailer
issue
JAN 2012:FEB 2012
30
THE ARA
COVER STORY: Move over diamonds, Lorna Jane is a girl’s best friend An interview with Lorna Jane Clarkson
INSIDE:
Top retail trends for 2012 ARA asks the experts How to make your business succeed when times are tough
13 0 0 3 6 8 0 41 w w w. r e t a i l . o r g . a u w w w. t w i t t e r . c o m / @ r e t a i l a u s t r a l i a
ARA Production team Editor – Kath Christie Editorial team – Andie McMaster, Yariv Field External contributors – Sonia Gibson (RMG Partners), Steve OgdenBarnes (Deakin Graduate School of Business), Pieter van Wessem and David Ginsberg Graphic design – Shaun Bajada Photos/Images supplied by – Lorna Jane, Field Agent, Ebay, Some …show more content…
A second blow came for the retail sector with the Reserve Bank’s decision to leave interest rates on hold for February. As we head towards the toughest month of the year, Christmas credit card bills will roll in and back to school costs will tighten household budgets even further. There is one certainty, and that is consumers are conservative, and remained conservative over the festive season. The fact that even food sales were down confirms this- even though some of it could be due to continued supermarket price wars and declining fruit and vegetable prices. We also saw some serious declines across the fashion and department store categories. A month on month boost was reported however this was probably due to heavy discounting and at any rate the growth figure was below CPI levels. Year on year, the trend is still towards declines in these key areas which rely on both discretionary spend and periods such as the festive season to get them through. Retailers will be disappointed at the setbacks and will be looking seriously at their business plans to ensure their business can be run sustainably. Perhaps one of the most interesting parts of the retail trade figures is the consistent ‘boom’ in the other retailing category. There are many types of retailing lumped into the ‘other’ category, and we have said recently it could do with some drilling down into given it consistently posts year on year growth of between five and eight percent. One of the elements in the ‘other’ category is pure play online, which is worth a closer look given PayPal recently declared December 2011 as the biggest month yet for online shopping. What’s more, 70 percent of online shopping done by Australian consumers during this period was with purchases from Australian
retailer
issue
JAN 2012:FEB 2012
30
THE ARA
COVER STORY: Move over diamonds, Lorna Jane is a girl’s best friend An interview with Lorna Jane Clarkson
INSIDE:
Top retail trends for 2012 ARA asks the experts How to make your business succeed when times are tough
13 0 0 3 6 8 0 41 w w w. r e t a i l . o r g . a u w w w. t w i t t e r . c o m / @ r e t a i l a u s t r a l i a
ARA Production team Editor – Kath Christie Editorial team – Andie McMaster, Yariv Field External contributors – Sonia Gibson (RMG Partners), Steve OgdenBarnes (Deakin Graduate School of Business), Pieter van Wessem and David Ginsberg Graphic design – Shaun Bajada Photos/Images supplied by – Lorna Jane, Field Agent, Ebay, Some …show more content…
A second blow came for the retail sector with the Reserve Bank’s decision to leave interest rates on hold for February. As we head towards the toughest month of the year, Christmas credit card bills will roll in and back to school costs will tighten household budgets even further. There is one certainty, and that is consumers are conservative, and remained conservative over the festive season. The fact that even food sales were down confirms this- even though some of it could be due to continued supermarket price wars and declining fruit and vegetable prices. We also saw some serious declines across the fashion and department store categories. A month on month boost was reported however this was probably due to heavy discounting and at any rate the growth figure was below CPI levels. Year on year, the trend is still towards declines in these key areas which rely on both discretionary spend and periods such as the festive season to get them through. Retailers will be disappointed at the setbacks and will be looking seriously at their business plans to ensure their business can be run sustainably. Perhaps one of the most interesting parts of the retail trade figures is the consistent ‘boom’ in the other retailing category. There are many types of retailing lumped into the ‘other’ category, and we have said recently it could do with some drilling down into given it consistently posts year on year growth of between five and eight percent. One of the elements in the ‘other’ category is pure play online, which is worth a closer look given PayPal recently declared December 2011 as the biggest month yet for online shopping. What’s more, 70 percent of online shopping done by Australian consumers during this period was with purchases from Australian