Retail Business Newsletter

There is reporting that the Retail Industry is not pleased by the interest rate raise to 3.25 percent from 3 percent which happened October 6th at the Reserve Bank of Australia meeting. In the newsletter Inside Retailing Russell Zimmerman stated that he thought the rate hike was too soon and could impact Holiday sales for [...]

Business confidence rose in August, to six year high in the latest positive news for the Australian economy. Last month we had an article about consumer sentiment reaching a 35 year high, this month there is good news in the business sector.
The National Australia Bank’s monthly business survey showed business confidence at the highest level [...]

Latest data suggests that consumers are feeling more optimistic about the state of the economy and in numbers never measured before.
The Westpac-Melbourne Institute has been tracking a metric called the consumer sentiment index.
The index is up 27.8 in the last 3 months which is the biggest three-month gain since the survey was started in 1975.
“The [...]

The figures for May 2009 Retail Sales have just been calculated by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and they seem to be good news. For most industries and in most regions of Australia year on year sales for the month of May 2009 have risen and quite substantially.
Most regions rose
The news was pretty much [...]

Some Businesses have less than 30 days to start contracts!
The proposed tax allowance bill that was drafted in February of this year has become law. In a previous article article we discussed the impact this would have on businesses large and small. Originally it was proposed that this would allow be a 30% Tax deduction [...]

In one of the more interesting retail stories recently, the Government of Southern Australia and the large discount chain Target will not give customers free bags to carry purchases home in. This is recent trend where more consideration is given to the ecological impact of plastic bags as people try to limit the use of [...]

The Reserve Bank of Australia Tuesday lowered interest rates a further one quarter of a percentage point to a 49-year low. The reason that was given is that the economy is contracting, but at a slower pace than other major economies. Because the current condition is fairly good in Australia it seems a deeper cut [...]

The world’s largest office supply chain, Staples released 4th quarter 2008 results showed a 14 percent drop in profit from the previous year. This comes on an actual increase in overall sales but of less profitable items.

The retailer sells a variety of items in it’s retail stores from consumables such as paper, toner cartridges, and [...]

In an example of a retail business that is not only surviving but flourishing one does not have to look farther than the local Woolworth’s. Retail giant Woolworths is defying current economic trends, and expects to create 7,000 Australian jobs in the next four months.
The supermarket company posted a 10 per cent increase in first-half [...]