Boxing Day sales fell short of last year: Paymark

Boxing Day sales ended up 2.2 per cent short of last year’s figures, according to Paymark, which said poor weather may have led more Kiwis to avoid the shops.

Spending the day after Boxing Day fell 23.6 per cent on the same time last year, though that day fell on a Sunday this year, which could have had an impact.

However, Boxing Day trade was still up around 20 per cent on Saturday trade in early November before the Christmas spending spree started, signifying a strong sales uptick – just not as strong as 2019.

And according to Paymark, the days prior to Christmas are always the busiest days for sales, and this year they were up 10.4 per cent on the same period last year. This could point to more people buying in advance of Christmas this year, rather than holding out for a Boxing Day bargain.

“Looking across the pre- and post-Christmas period, annual spending growth for [our] core group of merchants for the five weeks ending Sunday 27 December was up 5 per cent on last year, which included a strong start over the Black Friday four days of sales,” Paymark said.

“[However] merchants directly exposed to the tourism sector were generally below year ago levels, including Food and Liquor Service merchants in total being 0.5 per cent below year ago levels.”

The Payments provider also noted sales on Christmas Eve set a new record for the number of transactions per second its network had ever processed, seeing 204 transactions per second.

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