Retail spending on electronic cards during September showed mixed results, with spending falling in consumables and increasing in durables, reported Statistics New Zealand.

There was an overall seasonally adjusted decrease of 0.1 per cent in spending,  with core retail spending (excluding vehicle-related industries) falling 0.4 per cent.

Neil Kelly, business indicators manager, said that spending fell in four retail industries and rose in two during September.

The largest retail movements downwards were in consumables, which fell $6.3 million (0.4 per cent) and fuel, which fell $6.1 million (0.8 per cent).

Durables had the largest increase in card spending, up $2.8 million (0.3 per cent).

Results over the past few months are showing the gradual easing in the trend of rising total card, retail, and core retail sales that has been evident since October 2002 when the Statistics NZ reporting series began.

In September there were, in unadjusted terms, 115 million transactions made across all industries, with a total of $5.8 billion spent. Each transaction had an average of value of $50.