Economists have predicted that Australian retailers will see their sales slowing down in the second half of 2022 as consumers are reducing their spending due to living cost pressures and interest rate hikes.
In its latest quarterly retail forecasts report, Deloitte Access Economics said it was likely that most of the growth in retail revenue would be due to prices rather than volumes in the next few years.
The report predicted that retail turnover growth would drop from 3.4 percent in 2022-2023 to 0.8 percent in 2023-2024 before bouncing back to 1.2 percent and 1.8 percent in the following two financial years.
In addition, Australian households were expected to slash spending on non-discretionary goods and services like fuel, housing and health. This would add more pressure to other spending categories….