Sun is out but shoppers’ wallets are closed

Boxing Day spending growth was strongest among regional centres in holiday regions like Nelson and Bay of Plenty but Auckland spending was quiet this year.

Despite a Boxing Day frenzy in some centres, shoppers spent relatively modestly, indicating that some may have stayed away to enjoy the warm weather.

Some malls were so busy they had to employ security guards to keep crowds orderly, but the lure of cut-price goods was only enough to raise spending by 1.9 per cent on last year.

Paymark’s electronic payments system, which covers 75 per cent of the country’s payments, recorded a Boxing Day total of $152.7 million, which was still a record till take for the day.

By comparison, retailers raked in $247.1m on Christmas Eve and $306.2m on December 23.

Wellington experienced the fastest growth of the major cities, with spending up 4.8 per cent.

However, growth was strongest among regional centres in holiday regions.

Taranaki was up 7.3 per cent on last year, Nelson was up 6.0 per cent, Otago was up 5.7 per cent and Bay of Plenty shopping rose 5.0 per cent.

In contrast, New Zealand’s biggest region, Auckland/northland, posted a modest 0.9 per cent growth rate, indicating many people were out of the city for the Christmas holiday season this year.

Prior to Christmas, Paymark was tracking a 6 per cent rise in underlying Christmas spending over the first three weeks of December.

Meanwhile, retail analysts Marketview drilled down into tourism spending at the country’s top 10 tourist spots over the postchristmas period last year and found tourism revenue was almost evenly spread between the North and South islands.

Two holiday destinations, the Coromandel, and the Mackenzie District, stood out.

The Coromandel received almost 6 per cent of the country’s tourism spending even though it only had about 1 per cent of the retailers.

And for fuel purchases over last year’s holiday season, the Mackenzie District was the busiest spot in the country, followed by Taupo and, surprisingly, the Opotiki district.

Nationwide, the most popular place for takeaways was Queenstown, which took 4.2 per cent of all takeaway spending by domestic tourists over the break last year.

This is despite it being home to just 1 per sent of the country’s takeaway outlets.