Lockdown and how we spent it

The spending habits of Kiwis during lockdown restrictions have been revealed, and streaming services, supermarkets and fast food enjoyed a significant boom.

Westpac has released anonymised data on its customers’ spending from February 27 to May 13 as New Zealand moved from level 4 to level 2.

Spending on digital subscriptions and digital goods including media, books, movies and music increased massively in the lead-up to level 4 and stayed high into level 3.

But as soon as the country moved into level 2, those digital subscriptions dropped to fewer than pre-lockdown transaction figures.

Fast-food chains, which lost all their sales during level 4 while closed, rocketed back up to greater than prelockdown sales numbers as soon as they reopened in level 3.

“A benefit of this data is that we can see spending behaviour, which can help us cater our systems to customers’ behaviour,” Westpac tech area lead Hamish King said.

Supermarkets had initial spike as level 4 began but nose-dived as level 2 came into effect and restaurants, bakeries and cafes reopened. New Zealanders have been eating out in level 2 — and daily transactions at eateries are now close to prelockdown numbers.

Hair salons had one of the highest booms of any industry when New Zealand entered level 2. Barber and beauty shops enjoyed daily transactions double that of figures before Covid-19 when they reopened.

Gambling was seemingly immune to lockdown, consistently recording high transactions online, through lottery tickets and betting.