Retail sales in Australia fell a seasonally adjusted 0.1 percent on month in March, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday - standing at A$25.630 billion.
That missed forecasts for an increase of 0.3 percent following the downwardly revised 0.2 percent decline in February (originally -0.1 percent).
By category, there were falls in food retailing (-0.5 percent), cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services (-0.5 percent), department stores (-0.6 percent) and household goods retailing (-0.1 percent).
These falls were offset by rises in other retailing (1.1 percent) and clothing, footwear and personal accessory retailing (0.4 percent).
By region, there were falls in Queensland (-1.3 percent), the Northern Territory (-1.8 percent), South Australia (-0.1 percent) and Tasmania (-0.2 percent).
There were rises in Victoria (0.4 percent), New South Wales (0.1 percent), the Australian Capital Territory (0.3 percent) and Western Australia (0.1 percent).
For the first quarter of 2017, retail sales gained 0.1 percent on quarter.
That also missed forecasts for an increase of 0.5 percent following the downwardly revised 0.7 percent jump in the three months prior (originally 0.9 percent).
The main contributors to this rise were food retailing (0.6 percent), household goods retailing (0.4 percent) and other retailing (0.4 percent).
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