BNZ’s weekly Marketview report indicates that retail spending in New Zealand for the week of February 1 grew four per cent over the same week last year.

This is the highest weekly rise in spending of 2015. BNZ’s tracking of electronic spend shows retail spending for the last 30 days is now up 2.4 per cent.

Store types with the largest rises in spending this week included travel, agents up 17.4 per cent; department stores, up 8.7 per cent; and hardware and homeware, 6.8 per cent.

The overall rise in transactions this week, at 3.3 per cent was below the rise in spending, most likely due to the influence of petrol prices and the activity at petrol stations. As petrol is cheaper this year than last, consumer spending at fuel retailers is down 14.2 per cent, while the volume of transactions is down just 3.8 per cent.

Auckland Nines tournament was moved earlier due to the Cricket World Cup later in February, and it looks to have worked from a retail point of view, according to BNZ’s Michael Stechman. Having the tournament
at the back end of the school holidays and close to Auckland Anniversary Day, resulted in more spending in the area.

Consumers spent 13.7 per cent more in Auckland City over the tournament this year than the dates of last year’s tournament. When isolating just non-local cardholders, this figure rises to 23.8 per cent.