Rich farmers keep Palmerston North retailers happy
The city benefits from its rural roots as it bucks the national trend of spending decline.
Palmerston North has bucked a national decline in retail spending in April, showing an increase of 4.1% compared with April 2011.
Nationally, retail spending was down 0.3%, according to electronic payments company Paymark.
The only other region to show a spending increase was Auckland/Northland (up 1.4%).
Palmerston North mayor Jono Naylor told NBR ONLINE the city's retail growth is dependent on the region's rural sector.
"I guess because farmers have been doing reasonably well of late, that has been good for us."
He says retail is a strong performer in Palmerston North.
"While we have 1.9% of the country's population, we have 2.6% of the retail activity."
He says unemployment is also down in the city, which helps promote spending.
Regions which declined the most in April were Marlborough (-4.7%), Wairarapa (-4.3%), Gisborne (-4.3%) and West Coast (-3.1%).
Paymark'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 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 which saw increases in spending compared with last year were hardware (up 5.1%) and hospitality (up 5.8%).
Caleb Allison
Thu, 10 May 2012
Thu, 10 May 2012
© All content copyright NBR. Do not reproduce in any form without permission, even if you have a paid subscription.
Rich farmers keep Palmerston North retailers happy
20588