There is relevant Australian data for August 2025 from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Monthly Household Spending Indicator. I think there are insights here for our channel.
Here’s a breakdown of the key figures and trends for August 2025 (seasonally adjusted, month-on-month change, current prices) direct from the ABS website:
- Total Household Spending: Rose slightly by 0.1% month-on-month. Annually, it increased by 5.0% compared to August 2024.
- Goods vs. Services: Services spending rose by 0.5%, while goods spending fell by 0.2%. This suggests a continued shift in consumer preference toward services.
- Discretionary vs. Non-Discretionary: Discretionary spending saw a small increase of 0.2%, while non-discretionary (essential) spending declined by 0.1%.
Key Spending Categories (Discretionary and Others):
- Largest Increases:
- Transport (+0.8%) – This category includes discretionary items like vehicle purchases as well as non-discretionary motoring goods and services.
- Miscellaneous goods and services (+0.8%) – This is a broad category that includes discretionary items like personal care, personal effects, and other services.
- Clothing and footwear (+0.5%)
- Largest Declines:
- Alcoholic beverages and tobacco (-0.9%)
- Recreation and culture (-0.9%)
- Furnishings and household equipment (-0.1%)
Now, for some context for newsagents:
- Newsagencies sell items that fall into several of the discretionary spending categories, such as:
- Recreation and culture: (e.g., magazines, puzzles/games, toys often sold at newsagents) which overall saw a significant -0.9% decline in August.
- Alcoholic beverages and tobacco: This category, which is traditional on some newsagency businesses, also saw a decline of -0.9%.
- Miscellaneous goods and services: Discretionary sub-categories like Personal effects (e.g., stationery, gifts) saw an overall increase in this broad category.
Industry-specific reports for newsagencies suggest:
- Traditional pillars struggling: Newsagents continue to experience year-on-year declines in traditional areas like magazine sales, newspaper sales, stationery revenue, and tobacco/candy sales (as of late 2025 reports reflecting recent trends).
- Growth in hobbies/gifts/books/homewares/collectibles: Growth is being reported in categories like toys, cards, games, jigsaws, gifts, homewares and collectibles like pop culture and related items – suggesting that a newsagency with a diversified product offering might be experiencing a better result overall, where the decline in traditional items is offset by growth in hobby/gift-related discretionary purchases. Typically, this diversified business has an overall better gross profit position.
Overall, the August 2025 household spending data shows consumer activity moderating, particularly for certain discretionary goods, while services and some goods like transport saw increases.
After all that waffle, the question has to be: where is your business in this?
If your business performance is flat or declining, taking action, new action, is the only option. Continuing doing what you’re doing will continue with the results you have been experiencing.