Message from the CEO, Dominique Lamb: 24 April 2018

CEO Dominique Lamb

The ACTU’s war against employers continues this week, with an outlandish claim that its push for a whopping 7.2 per cent increase to the minimum wage would create 87,000 new jobs over two years. As you know, upping your staff’s wages by $50 per week each is not going to help you create more work […]

Message from the CEO, Dominique Lamb: 17 April 2018

CEO Dominique Lamb

The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has upped the ante on its anti-business crusade, unveiling an alarming six-point plan it believes will lift wages. It’s a plan that’s more likely, however, to send businesses broke and cost Australians their jobs. Industry groups, including the NRA, have warned the unions’ bid for industry-wide bargaining and […]

2018 Presents New Opportunities and New Directions

Adding facts, such as population CENSUS data, will help define and validate your business roadmap. Maps. We all need maps to know how to get to where we want to go. Who wants to spend hours and hours trying to figure out the best and fastest route to a destination? It’s a waste of time, […]

Future trends in “bricks and mortar” retail

Written by Collin Freeman, Space Planning Concepts Retail is constantly changing and evolving.  The challenge for retailers is to try and anticipate how to deal with these changes, and building in factors that could make allowances. Retail businesses can use various channels to deliver products and services to the end customer. The big question is, what […]

Christmas shopping to top $1 billion a day

Retail sales increase

MEDIA RELEASE With 50 shopping days until Christmas, the National Retail Association (NRA) has today released its pre-Christmas and Boxing day trade projections which show that Australians are poised to spend more than a billion dollars a day during the busiest trading period for the year. The pre-Christmas and Boxing Day trade period runs from […]

Message from the CEO: 8 August 2016

Dominique Lamb CEO National Retail Association

Last week saw two lots of major news for the retail sector, and overall it was a mixed bag. Tuesday’s announcement by the Reserve Bank of a cut to official interest was good news at first glance, even though it carried the underlying warning from the RBA of weakness in the economy. We know that […]

A Message from the CEO: 18 July 2016

The re-elected Turnbull Government has this week shown a dawning awareness of the real challenges confronting the Australian economy, with a number of MPs drawing attention to unemployment and faltering economic conditions, particularly in regional areas. For the retail sector, the difficult trading conditions in some market segments were highlighted by the collapse of two […]

Message from the CEO: 8 April 2016

This week’s Australian Bureau of Statistics results for February showed a continuation of the longer term growth in our sector we have been witnessing for some time now. The headline figures were no doubt disappointing – showing effectively no change from January’s results. However, the annualised growth rates showed a 3.7 per cent increase compared […]

Household goods continue to drive retail trade growth

The recent release of the November 2015 retail trade figures by the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed continued growth in the Household Goods sector. As indicated in the graph below, the retail sector grew by 3.8 per cent nationally, with Victoria (5.5 per cent), Tasmania (4.3 per cent) and New South Wales (3.9 per cent), […]

Household goods make strong contribution to retail trade figures

The recent release of the September 2015 retail trade figures by the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed continued growth in the Household Goods sector, and Footwear and Personal Accessories. As indicated in the graph below, the retail sector grew by 3.9 per cent nationally, with Victoria (4.9 per cent), South Australia (4.4 per cent) and […]