Modest Pick-up in Big Ticket Spending for August

Paymark: Modest Pick-up in Big Ticket Spending for August

Paymark figures for the last 28 days of August show a 0.7 percent growth rate, similar to July and above the 0.3 percent growth rate for the first half of the year.

Although growth rates continue to be strong at food outlets, those sectors hardest hit by the recession were showing some signs of improvement -  including furniture retailers, which sat at zero but came back from large falls since 2008, and hardware, which was up 7 percent per annum.

The figures showed people were still being cautious about using credit cards, with credit card growth remaining slow at 1.5 percent increase, while debit card transactions were up 8.3 percent. The average transaction size is still declining this year but the higher volume of transactions highlights that there are some good retail deals to be had.

The figures also showed the South Island was consistently stronger than the North Island, with no year on year declines for Southern regions during August.

Paymark CEO Simon Tong suggests this could perhaps be the effect of increased visitors for the South Island during ski season and figures from NZSki support this, showing that more Australians were heading to the southern ski fields than ever which contributed to a visitor increase of 40% this year.

Regions with the fastest growth annual growth during August were Marlborough (4.7 percent) and South Canterbury (2.9 percent). The slowest for the month were Palmerston North (-1.8 percent), Waikato and Bay of Plenty (both -0.8 percent).

Paymark processes more than 75 percent of all electronic transactions in New Zealand, putting us ahead of any other country in the world in terms of EFTPOS use.

ENDS

© Scoop Media