Retail’s Reluctant Realism - Retail Radar Report Q4 2025

Retail NZ’s quarterly survey for Q4 2025 shows the country’s retailers are experiencing a two-speed recovery in the wake of the economic downturn, chief executive Carolyn Young says.

The latest Retail Radar report, released today, shows confidence is at a two-year high, with 76.7% of respondents saying they are ‘confident’ or ‘very confident’ their business will survive the next 12 months.

“This is a big jump on the 65.5% confidence rate in our previous survey, and a positive sign that retailers may finally be starting to realise those economic green shoots on the shop floor,” Retail NZ chief executive Carolyn Young says.

“Importantly, the proportion of retailers feeling ‘not confident’ their business will get through the next 12 months has almost halved since our Q3 2025 Retail Radar survey, to just 6.6%.”

Also, for the first time since Q1 2023 the number of retailers meeting their sales targets also edged above 50%. In Q3 2025, 61.7% of the survey respondents reported they did not meet their targets – that has now improved significantly to 48.3%.

“These are positive signs for the retail sector; however, retailers are still approaching 2026 with some caution,” Ms Young says.

“The data shows a distinct gap between retailers who have stabilised and those who are still struggling. While 81% of those who were met their targets by the end of 2025 expect to continue to do so, only 28% of those missing the mark expect that to turnaround in the first quarter of 2026.”

“We are also hearing of retailers downgrading their targets and taking on less stock, which indicates retailers are no longer expecting a quick bounce-back, and instead have a reluctant realism that spending could remain slow-going for a while yet,” Ms Young says.

Black Friday

The Retail Radar report also shows Black Friday sales are spreading holiday retail spending thinner, rather than growing the overall pie.

“The holiday spending period no longer has a single peak at Christmas, rather, shoppers are stretching the same spend over both November and December, something that we’ve also seen in card spending data” Ms Young says.

Our survey found 43% of respondents chose not to participate in Black Friday promotions at all. While 14% did experience a revenue lift during the period, 16% reported that Black Friday actually reduced their overall Q4 profitability.

“We are seeing Black Friday actually cannibalising the traditional Christmas and Boxing Day spend, and many retailers do not see any value in participating in the November sales,” Ms Young says.

“We expect some retailers also view the heavy discounting required as not worth the risk to their bottom line, but are then faced with the possibility of losing sales altogether.”

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