Slow start to Christmas
follows Black Friday
Black Friday appears to have taken the edge off the traditional start of the Christmas shopping season this year.
Eftpos company Paymark, which monitors transactions on its network, said spending excluding fuel was flat between October and November, despite strong spending on November’s Black Friday discount day.
Nevertheless, the number of sales was up 5.2 per cent on a year ago, and the amount shoppers spent last month was 4.4 per cent higher than the previous year, and could have been higher if not for a fall in petrol prices.
Shoppers splashed the cash on Black Friday itself, with non-fuel sales up 10.8 per cent on the previous year.
But they slumped to an average 2.5 per cent over the following week and were even lower last weekend.
Paymark spokesman Paul Brislen noted poor weather might have also had an impact.
But Black Friday had made a huge leap in people’s awareness, and the question was whether it had ‘‘sucked some of the life’’ out of spending on other days.
‘‘The statistic does imply Black Friday sales affected spending on surrounding days.’’
Christmas Day falls on a Tuesday this year, meaning retailers expect the peak shopping day to be the Friday before.
That’s for bricks-and-mortar stores. Online, auction website Trade Me believes many Kiwis have already done their Christmas shopping.
A survey of 1000 shoppers found nearly half had their shopping all wrapped up by December.
‘‘Of course there are still those who leave it until the last minute. Ten per cent admitted to frantically trying to buy presents the week before the big day, and 1 per cent flirted with disaster and were waiting until Christmas Eve,’’ Trade Me spokeswoman Millie Silvester said.
But few would be as organised as New Zealand Post. Six hundred extra staff have been hired in its operations centre, plus 100 extra vans have been laid on in Auckland and 200 around the country.