NEW ZEALAND BUSINESS NEWS
Empowering Kiwi Businesses
New Zealanders spent $9.6 billion on debit, credit, and charge cards in October, down $120 million (1.2 per cent) from September, as households pulled back across almost every retail category. The figures come from the electronic card transactions series, which tracks card payments to New Zealand-based merchants and gauges consumer spending and economic activity. All figures are seasonally adjusted and are not adjusted for price changes.
Retail spending fell 0.7 per cent ($47 million) in September, and the core retail measure — which strips out the more volatile categories — fell 1.2 per cent ($73 million). Cardholders made 173 million transactions across all industries in October, at an average value of $56 per transaction.
Fuel was the sole retail category to increase, up $25 million (4.8 per cent) on September. Every other category went backwards. Durables recorded the largest fall in dollar terms, down $34 million (2.1 per cent), followed by hospitality, down $23 million (1.6 per cent).
Consumables slipped $7.5 million (0.3 per cent), motor vehicles excluding fuel fell $3.8 million (2.0 per cent), and apparel was down $2.2 million (0.7 per cent). The seasonally adjusted series are adjusted independently, so the component categories will not necessarily add up to the published totals.
The weakness was not confined to shops. The non-retail category excluding services, which covers medical and other health care, travel and tour arrangement, postal and courier delivery, and other non-retail industries, fell $72 million (3.1 per cent). Services, including repair and maintenance, personal care, and funeral and other personal services, fell $4.1 million (1.1 per cent).
For retailers, October’s numbers describe a month in which customers spent less in almost every part of the store. The durables and hospitality falls are most likely to show up in the till: both are discretionary categories where a 2.1 per cent and 1.6 per cent drop, respectively, represents real money missing from the month.
Because the values aren’t adjusted for price changes, a fall in card spending doesn’t necessarily mean people bought fewer things. It means less money went through the terminals. For a small business weighing up stock levels or staffing for the months ahead, the direction of travel across five of six retail categories is the signal worth watching.
The fuel increase stands apart from the rest of the result. Higher fuel spending leaves less in the household budget for everything else, which is consistent with the broad-based pullback recorded elsewhere in the month.
The card spending series is compiled from aggregated administrative data generated while processing New Zealand-based electronic transactions. It is a by-product of the payments system rather than a survey of businesses.
“Stats NZ does not control how data providers classify their merchants, and we are unable to see which merchants sit within each industry,” the agency said. Some transactions cannot be categorised by the data providers and are excluded from the results.
The figures also reflect coverage that can shift. When merchants move to data providers not covered by the series, reported totals can change over time, which means the numbers are subject to revision as the underlying data is updated.
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