Kiwis of all ages and across most demographic segments are becoming more confident at making purchases online, with the amount that they are spending also on the rise.

New Zealand’s online spending for the month of September was up 13 per cent compared with September a year ago, according to the BNZ Online Retail Sales Report.

The annual growth rate in online spending prior to September was around half of that rate.

Compared with September 2013, online spending with domestic merchants increased by nine per cent, with online spending with international merchants moving up by 20 per cent.

Spending was up more than 20 per cent in the electrical and electronic goods, computers and peripherals, and other specialised food categories, compared with last year’s rates.

Together, spending at domestic physical and online retail stores was up five per cent in September compared with last year.

The annual growth of nine per cent in online spending at local merchants outpaced that of spending in physical local stores.

With the exclusion of the daily deals sector, the annual growth in online spending at local stores was 11 per cent.

While the weakening of the NZ dollar against the US dollar makes international purchase more expensive in terms of the NZ dollar, this does not seem to deter NZ shoppers purchasing offshore.

When examining the distribution of online spending across age groups, the BNZ Online Retail Sales Report found that there were increases in all groups and across most demographic segments.

In the last five years online spending has at least doubled in most age groups, with the largest increase observed in the 65 plus age group’s spending on overseas sites.

Younger age groups appear to be focused on day to day experiential living.

For full details please see the report by BNZ and Marketview, available here www.bnz.co.nz/onlineretailindex