March was a boom quarter for retailers according to Statistics New Zealand.

The total sales value was $19.3 billion in the March 2015 quarter, almost $1 billion (5.1 per cent) more than the previous March quarter. Fuel retailing, down due to lower prices, was the only retail industry to have lower sales.

After removing the impact of price changes, total retail sales volumes rose 7.4 per cent in the March quarter compared with the same quarter last year.

 “This is the largest volume increase in dollar terms since this series began just over a decade ago,” acting business indicators manager Tehseen Islam said.

After removing the impact of seasonality, the volume of total retail trade sales rose a record 2.7 per cent in the March 2015 quarter compared with the December 2014 quarter.

“For the first time in almost 10 years, every industry had a seasonally adjusted rise,” Islam said.

“Electrical and electronics stores had a really strong quarter. Our discussions with retailers suggest that there’s no one thing in particular behind this, but there may be a strengthening back-to-school effect. This seems to mean that spending on things like laptops and tablets is having an impact on overall spending at the start of the school year.”

The largest seasonally adjusted industry sales volume movements were: electrical and electronic goods retailing, up 8.9 per cent; fuel retailing, up 3.5 per cent; and hardware, building and garden supplies, up 3.9 per cent.

The volume of sales in core retail (which excludes the vehicle-related industries) rose a record 2.9 per cent.

 Looking at the longer-term picture, the trends for both total retail sales volumes and values, have generally been rising since mid-2009.