Shoppers hope for UK bargains as sterling takes a tumble
A surge in Kiwi shoppers hitting British websites may well follow Britain’s shock decision to exit the European Union.
Friday’s vote in favour of ‘‘Brexit’’ has hammered the British currency, sending the New Zealand dollar up more than 8 per cent or 4 pence against the pound to 52.75 pence by early Monday afternoon.
Stephen Bridle, whose consultancy Marketview monitors the spending of BNZ card holders, said British online retailers were popular with Kiwi consumers.
BNZ cardholders alone spent over half a billion dollars on British-based websites in the year to June last year, about 40 per cent of all overseas online spending. However, it would probably take about six weeks to see if more people were seeking out British bargains, Bridle said.
‘‘When we’ve seen the currency appreciate, ie, become more expensive for people to buy stuff, it hasn’t really had an impact, we’ve seen a similar volume of spending.
‘‘But I would expect that if the currency depreciates ... then I would see people doing more online spending.’’
Lorraine Firth of online British goods store UK Grocer said there was a lot of misinformation on the impact of Brexit, which made it difficult to tell what the fallout might be.
‘‘A falling pound would benefit our customers unless the UK distributors change their pricing to us, but I think we all need to take a deep breath and wait.’’
Craig Dixon, owner of UK food store, Union Jack’s, said the falling pound would initially make no difference to his prices.
‘‘Short-term? Nothing, we’ve already paid for the goods. The medium term, we’’ll be able to buy goods cheaper.
‘‘It’ll be cheaper to bring across the border... The long term is still to be determined.’’
Any price change would take some time to filter through. But his business bought forward cover, so ‘‘this will help us out till Christmas’’.
Retail NZ spokesman Greg Harford said Book Depository, ASOS and other big British retailers were doing good trade in New Zealand.
‘‘So I guess retailers will be hoping that the pound recovers reasonably quickly’’.
Daniel Silva of the Importers Institute said the real game changer would be a falling euro, because New Zealand imported much more from Europe than Britain alone.
A weaker euro could also have a negative impact on New Zealand dairy farmers because European production would be cheaper, the BNZ said.
Kiwi meat exports might also be hurt.
Currently New Zealand sends about half its European meat quota to Britain, and the EU and Britain still help to set commodity prices.