Retail card spending has mixed results in April

Retail card spending has mixed results in April

9 May 2014

Retail spending using electronic cards increased by a seasonally adjusted 0.3 percent in April 2014, Statistics New Zealand said today.

"Spending rose in three retail industries during April, and fell in three," business indicators manager Neil Kelly said. "Fuel and consumables had the largest rises, while apparel had the largest fall."

The three largest retail movements in April 2014 were:
• fuel, up $11 million (1.5 percent)
• consumables, up $11 million (0.7 percent)
• apparel, down $8 million (2.7 percent).

Core retail (which excludes the motor vehicle-related industries) was flat, increasing just 0.1 percent in April 2014.

The two non-retail industries both decreased in April, resulting in a 0.4 percent fall in the total value of transactions.

Trends for the value of transactions in the retail and core retail series have continued to increase since these series began in October 2002. The trend for the total series has also generally been increasing over this time, but appears to have flattened in recent months.

In unadjusted terms, 113 million transactions were made across all industries in April, with an average value of $51. The total amount spent across all transactions was $5.8 billion.

For more information about these statistics:

• Visit Electronic Card Transactions: April 2014

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