May retail sales in Australia jumped 0.6 per cent. It follows an enormous one per cent surge in April, which was the largest monthly increase in over two years.

As a result of the recent spending spree, the year-on-year increase rocketed to 3.82 per cent, the fastest pace since April 2016.

In May sales of household goods, clothing, footwear and personal accessories, cafes, restaurants and takeaway food and food retailing all increased. Sales of furniture, floor coverings, house wares and textile goods also rose by two per cent while those for hardware, building and garden supplies increased by a slightly smaller 1.5 per cent.

Sales in New South Wales jumped by 1.3 per cent, the fastest of any state or territory. Sales increased by 1.2 per cent in Victoria and Tasmania, and by one per cent in the ACT. South Australia and Western Australia also pitched in with gains of 0.8 per cent and 0.3 per cent respectively.

Those strong results helped to offset a drop in sales in Queensland and the Northern Territory of 1.1 per cent and 0.5 per cent.

Questions remain whether one-off factors have driven retail sales higher over the past two months, but recent economic data, particularly around the labor market, new car sales and tourism, has been pretty strong.

And Australia’s population is currently growing far quicker than what many previously thought.

These are all factors that would generally support retail sales growth, and with consumer confidence also edging higher, it suggests that perhaps the outlook for retailers is not as bad as expected.