Retail card spending rose 1.4 per cent in September 2022, when adjusted for seasonal effects, Stats NZ says.
Spending rose across a majority of retail industries, with the largest contribution coming from consumables, up $20 million (0.8 pe rcent).
Consumables include items such as groceries (supermarkets) and liquor.
'People continued to spend more on items such as food and liquor. This is the third consecutive monthly increase for consumables,” says business performance manager Ricky Ho.
'We've seen food prices going up in the past few months, which can impact card spending on groceries.”
For the latest information about food prices, see the Food price index.
In actual terms, total card spending reached $8.6 billion, up 32.9 per cent from September 2021.
'Spending on hospitality services and durables made the largest contribution to the annual increase, as spending continued to rise and recover from the impact of having New Zealand under alert levels 3 and 4 in September last year.”
Durables include non-essential items such as furniture, hardware, and appliances.
September quarter spending increases
Seasonally adjusted card spending in retail industries increased $312 million (1.7 per cent) while the total card spending increased $912 million (4.0 per cent) from the June 2022 quarter.
'Card spending increased across most retail industries, with large increases seen in fuel and consumables.”
Actual retail spending was $19 billion in the September quarter, up 16.7 per cent from the September 2021 quarter.
'This reflects large annual increases in hospitality and durables. Spending on these items were hard hit last year as the country moved to alert level 4 restrictions in mid-August 2021 and was in various alert levels in September 2021.”
The electronic card transactions series covers all debit, credit, and charge-card transactions with New Zealand-based merchants. It can be used to indicate changes in consumer spending and economic activity.
Values are only available at the national level and are not adjusted to price changes.
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