Electronic card transactions across New Zealand for August across all retail have fallen by 4.6 per cent to NZ$6.3 billion (~A$5.79 billion), driven by declines in key discretionary categories including apparel.
This is according to Stats NZ, which showed that apparel sales hit NZ$314 million in August 2024, which was down 8.9 per cent on the same month last year. This is a slight improvement on July's yearly result of NZ$307 million, which was down by over 10 per cent from July 2023.
All this is despite total retail sales lifting by 0.2 per cent month-on-month, with apparel hitting the largest monthly increase of 2.1 per cent. Hospitality, however, was down 0.2 per cent month-on-month in August, with durables up 0.5 per cent on the previous month and consumables remaining stagnant.
“We do traditionally see an uplift in retail sales in August and this combined with the adjusted tax breaks would account for the positive result,” Retail NZ CEO Carolyn Young said.
“As always, the devil is in the detail, while we are happy to see a small uplift in August compared to July, it is still worrying that year on year there is a sizeable decrease.
“We are certainly hoping that cuts in interest rates and a lift in consumer confidence will result in a turnaround before Christmas.”
Meanwhile, the non-retail (excluding services) category decreased by NZ$8.4 million (0.4 percent) from July 2024, according to Stats NZ. This category includes medical and other health care, travel and tour arrangement, postal and courier delivery, and other non-retail industries.
The services category was up NZ$0.7 million (0.2 percent). This category includes repair and maintenance, and personal care, funeral, and other personal services.
The total value of electronic card spending, including the two non-retail categories (services and other non-retail), decreased from July 2024, down NZ$16 million (0.2 percent).
In actual terms, cardholders made 164 million transactions across all industries in August 2024, with an average value of NZ$55 per transaction. The total amount spent using electronic cards was NZ$9 billion.