Myer posted FY26 sales of $4.089 billion, up 11.3%, but almost all of that is the Apparel Brands merger. On a like-for-like basis growth was 0.3%, and the group's confidence index hit a record low of 76.7. It is the clearest read yet on how cautious the Australian shopper has become.
Australians are still spending. They are just not spending the way discretionary retailers need them to.
Myer's headline number looks healthy. Look closer and it is the clearest read yet on how cautious the Australian shopper has become.
Myer reported FY26 total sales of $4.089 billion, up 11.3%. That growth is almost entirely the Apparel Brands merger, the former Premier Investments brands like Just Jeans, Portmans, Dotti and Jay Jays. Strip the merger out and look at the like-for-like picture and the story changes. On a pro forma basis total sales rose just 0.3%, with comparable sales up 0.7%. Apparel Brands pro forma sales actually fell 1.3%.
The real signal is confidence. Myer's own confidence index hit a record quarterly low of 76.7 in the June quarter, down 15.5 points on the quarter before and below even the September 2020 pandemic low. Trading was weakest in June and July as households pulled back on discretionary spending.
Why it matters
Consumer confidence is the weather every retailer trades in. When it drops to a record low, the shopper does not stop buying, they get pickier, they wait for the sale, they trade down. That is brutal for full-margin discretionary retail and it shows up first in the businesses that cannot give people a sharp reason to buy now. Heavy discounting to move stock then eats the margin that was left.
Myer's June-quarter consumer confidence index, a record low and below the September 2020 pandemic reading
What to do about it
The shopper has not left. They have got careful. The retailers that win a cautious market are the ones who know their numbers well enough to discount surgically instead of across the board.