Christmas shoppers expected to open their wallets for record spend

Saturday, 22 December 2018

Mastercard's Christmas survey of 1000 people shows our spending intentions.

The great Kiwi Christmas shopping spend up is on target to be over $25 billion – higher than ever before.

Retail NZ is projecting $10 billion worth of spending in December, and $26.5b for the three month-Christmas shopping season 'window', which would be 5 per cent higher than last year.

The owner of Christchurch shoe shop Head Over Heels, Greta Washington, said while she had noticed there wasn't as many people out and about on the streets, which she thought was due to the average summer weather, those people that made the effort to come into town were dipping into their wallets.

Greta Washington, owner of Head Over Heels shoe shop on Christchurch's High St, says online shopping is cranking.

Furthermore, Washington had noticed her online sales during the seasonal festive spend had 'really cranked up'.

**READ MORE:

Shoppers in Westfield Riccarton Mall in the lead up to Christmas.

* Christmas shopping takes off, much to retailers' relief

* The ringing tills of Christmas time

* Black Friday: Boxing Day not yet eroded by Kiwi shoppers' increasing love for pre-Christmas sale day**

'In the past couple of months, online sales have doubled from what we would normally do.'

People were spending up large on Friday night in bars, such as this one in central Christchurch.

Paymark, which measures card transactions reported a high of 182 transactions per second at midday Saturday, which compared with 177 for the same day last year. A normal day is about 70 transactions a second. These are both in store and online.

The manager of Sylvia Park in Auckland, Susan Lindsay, said traffic had been creeping up during the past two days but the centre couldn't gauge actual sales yet.

Business was brisk at Westfield NZ's malls at Albany, Manukau, St Lukes.

According to its New Zealand general manager of centre experience, Paul Gardner, they were all heading for Christmas records.

'We've been going until midnight on Thursday Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

'We'll stop at 6pm on Christmas Eve so people can have family time including the thousands of retail workers we employ.

'It's not just about shopping. It's about the festivities and being around other people, and that can also just be coming to dine with family and friends,' Gardner said.

The peak day for shopping is usually Christmas Eve, but it depends on the day it falls. Last year's peak spending day was December 21, when $282.4 million worth of sales changed hands.

Greg Harford, public affairs manager at Retail NZ, said December's retail sales had started out slow.

He said it remained to be seen whether there would be a pick-up from what was a strong November, followed by 'a reduced spend' in the early part of December.

'There's real issues with weather round the country which has really been keeping shoppers at home, and overall I think December's going OK but it's not a standout year for retail.'

For bargain hunters, breaching the Christmas Eve crowds may prove worthwhile, as prices usually start dropping. But the best day for a bargain historically is Boxing Day, which is why gift cards are such a popular present.

Last year, according to Paymark, Boxing Day raked in $139m. And although there were concerns this year that November's Black Friday would steal some of its thunder, price comparison site Price Spy believes Boxing Day will retain its crown.

PriceSpy's New Zealand country manager Liisa Matinvesi-Bassett, said past data showed there were more discounted products on Boxing Day overall than Black Friday, and the discounts were likely to be bigger.

The website predicts that almost a fifth of its products will be cheaper on December 26, with price cuts on average of 13 per cent.