Customers put brakes on in October ahead of Black Friday sales

Despite October’s slowdown in spending, over the longer-term horizon, spending has held up relatively well with retail trade rising over the last year, writes Brendan Rynne and James Stewart.

Seasonally-adjusted retail trade fell 0.2 percent over the month, after growing by 0.9 percent in September, and was considerably lower than the consensus expectation of a 0.1 percent rise. Turnover was down in all retail categories except food retailing, which rose by 0.5 percent. This likely indicates that customers temporarily paused in October to take advantage of price discounts during Black Friday events in November. Clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing (-1.0 percent...

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Authors: Brendan Rynne, James Stewart

Published Date: 29 November 2023