Retail Trade Survey deflator weights

The Retail Trade Survey (RTS) deflators measure change in the prices of goods and services sold by businesses in the 15 retail industries. Movements in actual retail sales values can be explained by changes in price, and by changes in volume. The deflators are used to remove the effect of price change, which allows change in the volume of retail sales to be estimated.

The deflator for each industry consists of a 'basket' of indexes, drawn mainly from the consumers price index (CPI). The CPI indexes and other indicators in each deflator's basket represent the goods and services sold by the industry. Each good or service is weighted to reflect the relative importance of the mix of goods and services sold by the industry.

In 2010, the RTS was redesigned to reflect the updated industrial classification, the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification 2006 (ANZSIC06). The RTS deflators were developed to deflate estimates of retail sales in current prices from the redesigned RTS.

The weights of the new ANZSIC06 deflators (which will be used for RTS periods: September 2011 quarter to June 2012 quarter) are based mainly on information used in the Consumers price index review: 2011, including household spending patterns, by industry, that were reported in the 2009/10 Household Economic Survey.

The ANZSIC06 deflator weights were calculated for the 41 lower-level industries that comprise the 15 published retail industries. These weights are expressed in the prices of the June 2011 quarter. The 41 industries are aggregated to the 15 published retail industries using information on their relative importance, based on RTS results for the year to the June 2011 quarter.

The relative importance of the 41 industries will be updated annually, based on sales for the latest year to June.

The ANZSIC06 deflators were directly calculated to measure price change from the June 2010 quarter onwards. Before the June 2010 quarter, the deflators were derived from backcast estimates of retail sales in current and constant prices.

Current and previous RTS deflator weights are attached in the Excel workbooks downloadable from this page.

Available files

RTS deflator weights – September 2010 to June 2011 (Excel, 6 sheets, 98kb)
RTS deflator weights – September 2011 to June 2012 (Excel, 6 sheets, 99kb)