A Quiet Giant
The Australian Large Format Retail (‘LFR’) industry is a remarkable contributor to the national economy. Based on data for the year ending June 2018, it is estimated that the industry provides direct employment for 240,000 workers. This is equivalent to 1.9% of the nation’s total workforce.
However, LFR operations support a wide range of secondary employment. Property development and maintenance, third party logistics, manufacturing, security and cleaning. They’re all part of the ecosystem and a further 244,000 jobs are supported in this manner by the LFR industry in Australia. This brings the total to 484,000, or 3.9% of the nation’s workforce.
Put another way, almost 1 in 25 jobs in Australia is supported by the operation of the LFR industry.
It is estimated that sales of LFR goods totalled $79.8 billion in 2017/18. This is the equivalent of $3,220 spent for every man, woman and child during the year (or $8,370 per household with an average size of 2.6 people).
Sales of LFR goods represented 25.3% of the total retail market of $31.57 billion in 2017/18. The share of retail spending directed to LFR goods steadily increased from 20.8% in 1998/99 to 25.3% in 2015/16 and has held at about this level for the past few years.
On a category basis, national LFR sales were estimated as follows:
| LFR category | 2017/18 sales ($billion) |
2017/18 sales (% of LFR total) |
| Electrical | 25.3 | 31.8% |
| Hardware & Garden | 21.2 | 26.5% |
| Furniture | 10.0 | 12.6% |
| Other LFR | 9.1 | 11.5% |
| Homewares | 4.8 | 6.0% |
| Automotive Parts & Accessories | 4.7 | 5.9% |
| Coverings | 4.6 | 5.8% |
| Total | 79.8 | 100.0% |
Finally, it is estimated that the industry occupied 19.9 million sqm of floorspace at June 2018. This is equivalent to the area of 1,000 MCGs or, for the northern states, about 2,000 rugby fields.
Which ever way you look at it, LFR is a quiet giant of the national economy.
Justin Ganly, Managing Director, Deep End Services
