According to the BNZ market view consumer spending series, spending was up 5.07 per cent for the week ending June 14 compared to the same week last year. The weekly rise is very much in line with a spending rise of 4.90 per cent over the last 30 days when compared to the same 30 days last year.

Store types with the largest rises in spending in the week ending June 14 include: department stores up 11.9 per cent; hardware and homeware up 6.7 per cent; and takeaways up 5.6 per cent.

Many motorists will have noticed that petrol prices have risen once again this week, up to 211.9 cents per litre of 91. This is the high point of price since back in early November last year. While prices are increasing, they are still 5.4 per cent cheaper on average than what they were this time last year. Interestingly, spending on fuel this week was down just 0.4 per cent, which suggests a lot more activity on the roads than last year.

The much maligned physical books and stationery stores are certainly not growing at the rate of some of the store types above, but many are still holding their own. For the year ending April 2015, spending at these stores was up 0.3 per cent compared to the prior 12 months. Maybe more of note is how these stores fit into consumers’ budgets. Five years ago these stores made up 10.3 per cent of New Zealand’s non-food consumables budget and now just 8.6 per cent.

The BNZ market view consumer spending series provides a measure of national consumer spending trends in the core retail categories, excluding fuel. It is based on the monthly credit and debit card spending of BNZ customers. It includes GST, but excludes other forms of electronic transactions such as overseas cards, gift cards, corporate and fuel cards. Numbers reported are actual values and volumes, ie not seasonally or inflation adjusted. Accordingly the series may differ from other electronic transaction data reports.