Palmerston North and Auckland buck spending decline
The holidays and good weather are being blamed for a spending slump last month.
Retail spending declined in April for the first time since October 2009, according to latest figures from payments company Paymark.
It processed nearly $3.7 billion worth of transactions, down 0.3% compared with April 2011.
Palmerston North and Auckland/Northland bucked the downward trend, showing spending increases of 4.1% and 1.4% respectively.
The regions where spending declined the most were Marlborough (4.7%), Wairarapa (4.3%), Gisborne (4.3%), and West Coast (3.1%).
Parmark's head of sales and marketing Paul Whiston blames the drop in spending on the holidays.
"April contained five Sundays and Mondays, which are the two slowest spending days during the week, as well as Good Friday, Easter Sunday and Anzac Day, which are three of the four slowest shopping days in the year," he says.
Mr Whiston says even when removing the "holiday effect", the underlying trend of lower spending remains, indicating that "people tended to enjoy the good weather while holidaying in the regions".
Two sectors that saw increases in spending compared with last year were hardware (5.1%) and hospitality (5.8%).
Caleb Allison
Wed, 09 May 2012
Wed, 09 May 2012
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Palmerston North and Auckland buck spending decline
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