The cost of living crisis is impacting the Limestone Coast’s retail businesses, as shoppers look to save where they can.
Local businesses are reporting a decrease in full price item sales and an increase in discounted items bought during the current school holiday period and end of financial year due to the rising cost of living.
The Victorian term two school holidays started last week and will continue into this week while the South Australian school holiday period started on Friday.
Mount Gambier’s DJ Interiors owner Christine Try said she has experienced an increase in sale purchases over the last five weeks.
“It is a lot busier than last year when the interest rates rose and allows us to move some older stock and bring in new stock,” she said.
“I have found a lot of people are sale hunting and making a day of visiting the sales in businesses down the main street.
“We have had lines going out the door during the sale which does not happen often and where people were buying one sale item last year or none at all, a lot of people are purchasing multiple.
“I have found those buying full price items are not splurging for themselves but rather buying them as gifts even for Christmas already.”
Mount Gambier Chamber of Commerce president Candice Fennell said she had seen visitors spending less money overall, leaving some local businesses to struggle as a result.
“There is certaintly a pinch when it comes to people and what they are spending and how far they are going and businesses are also having a flow on effect as a result of that,” she said.
“I think they are probably sharing the load among different businesses so where they might have had a big spend in one area or one shop, they are probably being a bit more conservative and spreading that spend across various shops but spending less.
“It is tricky at the moment with nothing seeming to ease up by way of the cost of living which also flows to our cost to business.
“I think there might be a period of time where we have got to be a little bit more conservative as consumers and that is definitely going to flow on to the businesses and they are going to have a level of effect after that.”
Ms Fennell said she is still seeing a number of tourists in the area despite the decrease in spending.
“I think it is one of those times where we are going to see a lower number of people being able to come and visit our area but it is tough right now,” she said.
“Particularly when COVID eased up, we had such freedom to move around again which invigorated a lot of activity and spending and people experiencing different things from a tourism perspective but I think now people are stopping and making some different choices to see whether that is something that is doable and if they are able to do that spend.
“We are seeing visitor numbers to the region and town probably getting back to pre-COVID numbers by way of some of the stability there.
“There certaintly is a level of buzz around town particularly in the last week with Victorian holidays.”
Ms Fennell said the rising cost of living was causing an increase of Limestone Coast companies considering selling their businesses.
“Some of them are family businesses that are just trying to see if there is an opportunity for sale so there are some businesses that are in the space of selling but they are not sold on selling,” she said.
“There are probably some businesses that are in a position where they need to sell.
“At the moment we are seeing quite a few businesses up for sale and they have been for sale for a period of time, so we are seeing very low numbers of vacant shops. Hopefully people will end up buying those businesses instead of us ending up with a lot of vacant shops again.”
