Online sales trend growth pick up in February.

• Online retail experienced strong growth in February, with sales growing 1.7% compared to January (0.3%). This month’s NORSI trend growth result is much faster than that recorded in February 2014 (0.2%). We estimate that online sales are now 8.7% higher compared to a year ago.
• ABS data showed growth of comparable traditional retailers in January to be 0.1% higher than December, and 3.7% higher than a year ago.
• With these results, January traditional retail sales have been outpaced by online sales for that month, and with the February result, it is likely that this will continue.
• In dollar terms, we estimate Australians spent $16.7 billion on online retail in the 12 months to February 2015. This level is equivalent to 6.9% of spending at traditional bricks & mortar retailers as measured by the ABS (excluding cafés, restaurants and takeaway food, to create a like-for-like comparison) in the 12 months to January 2015.
• All categories except Daily Deals and Personal Goods recorded growth in February. Although Electronic Games and Toys still represent a small share of spend, growth in this segment continued to outpace other categories. However this category, along with Department and Variety Stores, and Media recorded a slower growth than January. Groceries and Homewares saw higher monthly growth compared to January. Fashion saw much more subdued growth.

For further details please see the attached document.

• Online Retail Sales Index monthly update – February 2015(PDF,70KB)