Total sales shot up by 17.3 per cent to $605.8 million in seasonally adjusted terms, the Australian Bureau of Statistics found.

The all-time record was $626.2 million in March, as coronavirus-linked panic buying took hold.

The lockdown then influenced a nosedive to $516.4 million in April.

It is not yet clear how much of the May rebound was due to pent-up demand from April.

The June figures due in about a month will give clues on that.

Cafes, restaurants and takeaways picked up in May, with their sales climbing from $27.8 million to $36.6 million.

Their monthly sales regularly topped $60 million before the pandemic.

Supermarkets and grocery stores had their second highest monthly turnover on record ($236.9 million).

That was second only to March, when items such as toilet paper and cleaning and sanitation products flew off the shelves as worries about the pandemic increased.

Sales of electrical and electronic goods totalled a record $47.4 million in May.

Clothing, footwear and personal accessories retail surged from $10 million in April to $22 million in May.

Liquor sales were the second highest on record ($35.1 million), behind only March ($36.2 million).

The ABS only started publishing separate Tasmanian liquor sales numbers from April 2019.

Sales of newspapers and books combined increased by $1.3 million to $11.4 million in May.

Tasmania's 17.3 per cent turnover growth in May was beaten only by Western Australia.

"Retailers across a range of industries reported high numbers of customers returning to stores, with some retailers noting levels similar to those seen in December," the ABS' Ben James said.

Online sales dropped from 11.1 per cent of national turnover in April to 10.1 per cent in May.