Palmerston North and Auckland buck spending decline
Holidays and good weather are being blamed for a drop in retail spending on April.
Retail spending declined in April for the first time since October 2009, according to figures released today by electronic payments company Paymark.
It says it processed nearly $3.7 billion worth of transactions last month, down 0.3 percent from April 2011.
Palmerston North and Auckland/Northland bucked the national trend, showing increases in spending of 4.1% and 1.4% respectively.
The regions where spending declined the most were Marlborough (4.7%), Wairarapa (4.3%), Gisborne (3.4%) and West Coast (3.1%).
Parmark's head of sales and marketing Paul Whiston says part of the reason for the decline was the number of holidays there were in April.
"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.
He says when removing the "holiday effects", the trend of lower spending remains, but that is because "people tended to enjoy good weather while holidaying in the regions."
Two sectors that saw higher spending than in April 2011 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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