Australia’s online retail sales are continuing to climb, up to A$12.3 billion in the year ended October 2012, but for now the share of total spending is still modest, at around 5.6%. The rate of growth in online sales has strengthened considerably over the last six months, following something of a slowdown in the early part of 2012, with growth of around 26% year-on-year in October, compared with 2.2% for traditional retailing in September.

Domestic retailers have driven the growth in online sales over recent months, with international retailers lagging a little behind. Domestic retailers have been the dominant players in the online space, accounting for almost three-quarters of sales in the year to October.

Those aged in their 30s and 40s remain the key demographic for online spending, with the under 30s age group lagging on a per capita basis – although they do record marginally faster growth rates than any other age group. The strongest spending patterns are in the ACT, the Northern Territory and Western Australia, outperforming the bulk of the country in growth – at 36% year-on-year in October.

This is just a snapshot of the wealth of information contained in the NAB Online Retail Sales Index.

For further analysis download the full report.

• NAB Online Retail Sales Index: In depth report – October 2012 (PDF 2.44MB)

For more information, call your NAB Relationship Manager or contact:

Alan Oster
Group Chief Economist
National Australia Bank
+61 (0) 3 8634 2927
Alan.Oster@nab.com.au

Tiernan White
Retail Sector Head & Head of NAB Corporate NSW/ACT
+61 (0) 2 9237 1041
Tiernan.White@nab.com.au