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By Rachel Battaglia
August spending snapshot: RBC’s cardholder data for August shows core retail sales growth slowed from July—marking the third consecutive monthly slowdown in growth based on a three-month moving average.
Core retail sales—which excludes spending on autos and gas—grew 0.4% seasonally adjusted from July, when it rose 1.1%.
This trend aligns with our broader economic outlook . We believe Canada’s economy will resume slow, but positive, GDP growth after a Q2 decline with relatively resilient consumer spending offsetting persistent headwinds in the industrial sector.
Spending moderates in August after strong start to Q3
Solid consumer spending in July hit a bump in August. Total spending1 was down 2.2% m/m from July, reversing the previous month’s gain. Monthly spending data is always volatile, but the three-month moving average also grew more slowly for a third month.
The ongoing contraction in gasoline spending—continuing on a three-month average basis since the elimination of the consumer carbon tax this spring—has been a significant driver of this trend.
Still, most major spending categories saw growth—but slower—apart from clothing purchases, which accelerated. Travel spending dipped 0.1% seasonally adjusted on a three-month average.
Spotlight on spending: Lower gas and grocery spending weigh on essentials
Essential spending has shown a more persistent moderation compared to discretionary categories.
This pattern is largely attributable to the drop in spending at gas stations—which is deemed essential—after the removal of the consumer carbon tax this spring. Spending on groceries has also flatlined since May, which is contributing to lower essentials spending as well.
On a seasonally adjusted, three-month moving average basis, essentials spending contracted 0.6% m/m while other spending categories maintained positive growth.
Slowing spending growth amid cautious sentiment
Consumer confidence measures were little changed from July. The Conference Board of Canada’s Index of Consumer Confidence contracted marginally after four consecutive months of improvement—and remains substantially lower from a year ago.
The Bank of Canada’s Canadian Survey of Consumer Expectations mirrored the same pessimism among survey respondents regarding their spending intentions, and overall financial health. Consumers highlighted elevated job loss concerns were contributing to pessimism.
Despite the pessimistic indicators, consumer spending has remained more resilient than indicators would suggest—continuing to provide underlying support for the economy, even as other sectors face challenges.
Meanwhile, the recent cooling in population growth—after years of record increases that bolstered aggregate consumer spending—likely contributes to the current spending moderation, creating an additional headwind for retail sales beyond weak consumer confidence.
Regional spending trends: Provinces see spending growth slow in August
July marked a strong start to the third quarter across all provinces, aligning with the robust spending patterns observed at the national level.
August was somewhat softer but left most provinces still seeing higher spending on a three-month rolling average basis, albeit at a slower pace.
Saskatchewan and Manitoba experienced the most notable declines, 1.3% and 1.1% month-over-month, respectively, on a three-month moving average, seasonally adjusted basis. Some of this weakness can be chalked up to lower gas spending—which has had a larger impact on inflation and consumer costs in these provinces.
In contrast, the Atlantic provinces demonstrated the greatest spending resilience in August. Consumers in Ontario, meanwhile, have yet to show a meaningful pullback in spending despite being at the centre of Canada’s recent job losses, and bearing the brunt of ongoing trade disruptions with the United States. Our cardholder data is in line with Statistics Canada’s retail sales figures (where available), showing Ontario’s spending continues to track stronger than the national average so far this year.
Rachel Battaglia is an economist at RBC. She is a member of the Macro and Regional Analysis Group, providing analysis for the provincial macroeconomic outlook and budget commentaries.
By Carrie Freestone
RBC’s consumer spending tracking report uses RBC Data & Analytics’ proprietary database of anonymized card transactions by Canadian clients. The data are an accounting of merchant transactions that are divided into various spending categories covering tens of millions of weekly card transactions worth billions of dollars each week. Transactions, both in person and online, are classified into 11 broad spending groups: Dining, Education, Finances, Groceries, Health, Household, Shopping, Transport, Travel, Utilities, and Other. Within each group, the data are further classified: for example, shopping covers merchants classified as clothing stores, hobby shops, electronics stores, and jewelers, among others. We exclude purely financial transactions such as cash advances and insurance from spending.
We examined changes in the value of all transactions in these areas using a 7 day rolling sample starting January 1st of each year that is indexed to pre-covid levels which are calculated as the average spending for the month of February 2020. To examine the impact of seasonal factors, we also show each’s year spending profile which depicts monthly trends in spending. Online spending volumes are estimated based on the presence of an RBC card at the time of the authorization.
Protecting your privacy and safeguarding your personal information is a cornerstone of our organizational ethics and values and will always be one of our highest priorities. The underlying data for this analysis was aggregated based on transaction date, region and merchant category, and cannot be used to identify any individual client or merchant. For additional information please visit www.rbc.com/privacy.
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