squeezed from both directions. Customers continue to spend, but they are more deliberate about when, where and at what price. Retailers, meanwhile, are grappling with higher freight, energy, supply-chain and operating costs that cannot easily be passed through to consumers. KPMG’s latest Australia Retail Health Index captures the severity of the environment. The index fell to minus 1.07 in the June quarter, from minus 0.39 in the previous quarter, as weakening consumer sentiment, rising costs and deteriorating business conditions weighed on the sector. KPMG expects the index to remain negative until the end of 2027. The behavioural shift is being reinforced by a retail calendar that now offers shoppers repeated opportunities to wait. From Boxing Day and end-of-financial-year sales to Black Friday, Prime Day and Click Frenzy, the growing number of promotional events has made delaying a purchase feel relatively low risk. The full price problem Nearly six in 10 Australian shoppers no longer buy at full price, according to KPMG’s Retail Health Index. The report found that Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the most anticipated sales periods for 44 per cent of shoppers, followed by Boxing Day sales at 36 per cent and end of financial year events at 33 per cent. That shift presents a deeper problem for fashion, beauty, homewares and department stores. “Markdowns stop being a way to clear stock and become a planned cost,” Hockaday said. Full-price sales become harder when customers believe patience will be rewarded. Major promotional events can lift traffic and turnover, but they also concentrate a growing share of annual demand into lower-margin periods. Some Australian retailers are bucking the reliance on key promotional events by making value a year round proposition instead. Kmart and The Reject Shop have built their customer promise around everyday low prices, reducing the sense that shoppers must wait for a sale to secure a deal. Online value player Kogan takes a different approach, using  frequent flow of offers across technology, appliances and home categories to reinforce a consistent perception of value. Hockaday said retailers should be deliberate about protecting hero lines at full price, while using promotions more selectively to clear less strategic inventory. Personalised communications, in-store activations and other non-promotional customer engagement can build brand value before a sale event, rather than relying on the event itself to create demand. The margin trap “Margin management remains the defining challenge for the sector,” Dickerson and Jowett said. “Retailers continue to face elevated supply chain, freight and operating costs, while increasingly price-sensitive customers are limiting the industry’s ability to fully recover those costs through higher prices.” KPMG reported 254 retail insolvencies in the June quarter, while sector pre-tax profits fell 6.5 per cent to $4.6 billion. The figures underscore how exposed retailers can be when they combine high fixed costs, undifferentiated ranges and a commercial model built on perpetual promotion.  “Discounting remains a blunt lever,” Hockaday said. “It leaves margin at risk from those who may have purchased without incentive.” She said retailers could use bundles, bonus gifts, targeted offers and member-only access to create value without  broad price cuts. Discount avoidance can work when it is backed by a clear and credible value proposition, rather than simply higher prices. Bunnings, which generated $20.4 billion in revenue in the 2026 financial year, has built its customer proposition around everyday value, range and price confidence.   Smaller brands offer a different version of the same principle. Melbourne footwear brand Merry People has publicly positioned itself against Black Friday discounting, arguing that customers should be able to buy with confidence that a product will not be marked down weeks later.  Consumers have discovered the power of patience. A retailer cannot discount its way to durable relevance if every campaign teaches customers to ignore the original price. As Hockaday noted, consistent pricing that shoppers can trust can remove one of the main reasons to defer a purchase. The retailers that emerge strongest will not be those running the loudest sale, but those giving customers a compelling reason to buy now.