Lockdown Drove Surging Sales For All Things Home-Related Including Purchases For Pooches

According to the Large Format Retail Directory for 2022-23, large-scale retailers cashed in on Australians having more leisure time at home during the pandemic with a 26% jump in national sales in the year to June 2022.

The sales were attributed to large-format retail goods, which were in categories related to smartening up spaces with lighting and furnishing, home gym setups, and also pet-related goods with pooches or pets providing emotional support over lockdown.

Association chief for Large Format Retail Association and economic consultancy Deep End Services Philippa Kelly said the numbers reflect lockdown effects which stimulated significant growth for many home-focused companies in the super centre sector.

“Australians took to using gyms, buying electronic and white goods, and renovating during the pandemic in greater numbers, and that’s reflected in the new analysis,” she stated.

Despite substantial growth, the home improvement and furniture mall market has seen vacancy rates spiral down to a record low of 3.5%.

Due to the nature of their largely sized wares, these stores typically take up more real estate than standard stores and can be as large as 4000 square meters making this sector account for roughly one-third of all retail floor space in Australia.

Even with less space, however, stores like The Good Guys, Harvey Norman, Petbarn, PETstock, and Fantastic Furniture are thriving and are still riding the positive effects of the lockdown purchase wave and are still expanding.

The Deep End Services managing director Justin Ganly said the orgsanisation is seeing a rise in Australian home improvement centre tenancy profiles becoming increasingly diverse and less dependent stores focusing on electrical and furniture.

The growth of this sector is a good thing, because it houses over 500,000 jobs directly and indirectly.

As of now, the directory revealed a record number of 337 Australian and New Zealand home-focused malls which takes up a whopping 5.7 million square metres collectively.

Within the latest CBRE report, institutional buyers were highlighted as having accounted for 55% of Australia’s large-format retail acquisitions in 2022 when only in 2021, that number sat at a meagre 29%.