At the tills: Black Friday spending beats Boxing Day

Data shows Black Friday paid off for New Zealand retailers.

The shopping event, which originated in the United States, takes place on the Friday after Thanksgiving. It is followed by Cyber Monday.

Spending at non-food retail shops through New Zealand’s electronic Paymark network was 54 per cent higher on November 23 than the Friday before.

It was also 20 per cent higher than Black Friday 2017.

There was $69.7 million through the tills, more than the $68m recorded on Boxing Day 2017. Paymark warned that Boxing Day this year was likely to be busier again.

Spending on Saturday through Paymark at the same merchants was up 15.9 per cent on the previous Saturday and 8.3 per cent on the same Saturday in 2017. Combined spending over the two days was 14.5 per cent.

Liisa Matinvesi-Bassett of comparison website PriceSpy said the average discount on the site was 12 per cent per product, 5 per cent less than last year.

‘‘The most ‘searched for’ shopping categories were mobile phones, headphones and game consoles,’’ she said, ‘‘and the most popular products were the Sony PlayStation 4 Pro 1TB, Apple AirPods and the Nintendo Switch.’’

Total spending via Paymark on Black Friday was $238.2m, up 8.8 per cent on Black Friday 2017.

Spending growth was very strong in some of the provincial centres, including Whanganui (up 17 per cent) and Gisborne (up 16.7 per cent), although not so strong further south at South Canterbury (up 7 per cent) and Southland (up 7 per cent).