Consumer spending was up on the day of the New Zealand General Election, reports the BNZ Marketview for the week ending September 21, 2014.
Overall there was an increase in credit and debit card spending of 3.4 per cent from the equivalent Saturday last year, with hardware and homeware stores seeing an increase of 16.1 per cent.
The weather may have had a positive impact on Election day spending in the Southland Region, with an increase of 11.4 per cent compared with 0.4 per cent over the last 52 weeks.
In Gisborne, spending increased by 10.3 per cent compared with a 0.3 per cent increase over the last year.
However, spending on election day was a little lower than the same period last year in the Canterbury, Manawatu, Nelson and West Coast regions.
For the week ending September 21, overall retail spending was up by 0.10 per cent compared with the same week in 2013. Corresponding transaction volumes were up 1.7 per cent.
Spending barely rose over the past two weeks, compared with the same week in 2013. Retail spending for the past 52 weeks is up 1.55 per cent.
Department store spending moved up 13.7 per cent from the same week last year, with hardware and homeward up 6.3 per cent, and furniture and flooring up 9.9 per cent.
Overall spending in non-food consumables was up three per cent compared with the same week last year.
