As we support the retail community through this critical holiday trading period, new insights reinforce that this holiday season will see a focus on the value-driven, bargain-savvy consumer.
The ARA and Roy Morgan consumer research released last week showed unsurprisingly, the average gifting spend is tipped to be $646 per person, down from $700 in 2022.
Some 30% of shoppers will cut their Christmas gifting budgets in 2023, while 61% will look to maintain last year’s spending and 9% intend to spend more.
Full findings are featured below. You can find all our Holiday season resources and research at our special ARA Hub.
Significant developments in the industrial relations landscape continue with calls for latest tranche of workplace legislation, the controversial Closing Loopholes Bill to be split.
Crossbenchers David Pocock and Jacqui Lambie brought forward separate bills proposing that broadly supported provisions of the Bill such as family and domestic violence protections, workplace health and safety changes and small business redundancy exemptions, are implemented swiftly.
This move followed intense advocacy by the ARA and other industry voices calling for the bill to be split to allow for a robust review of the problematic and controversial measures within the bill.
Whilst Federal Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Tony Burke disappointingly blocked the debate on Monday, there are continued efforts to revisit this proposal and we remain hopeful that this may yet gain support.
You can read more about it here.
Retail crime and abusive behaviour continues to be an enormous challenge during this hectic season.
The ARA has led ongoing industry efforts with the SDA to address this, most recently establishing a tripartite retail employee safety council to address the rising incidence of abuse, violence and of theft.
More in this joint-announcement here.
We also continue to jointly advocate for legislative changes around the country to introduce tougher penalties for assaults and abusive behaviour towards retail workers.
