Liquor licensing laws and alcohol purchasing rates

Friday, 7 November 2014, 2:27 pm
Press Release: Roy Morgan Research

Liquor licensing laws and alcohol purchasing rates

74% of New Zealand adults drink alcohol in an average four week period, down from 77% in 2009 but still slightly above the Australian rate of 70%, data from Roy Morgan Research shows.

But despite only this small gap in consumption, the rate of alcohol purchasing is much higher in New Zealand than in Australia—a difference that may be a result of the two countries’ liquor licensing laws. In the year to June 2014, 59.4% of Kiwis bought alcohol in a four-week period, compared with 49.6% of Australians.

This difference in purchasing rates reflects the two countries’ liquor licensing laws. In each country, one particular channel is most popular among the vast majority (76%) of alcohol —but in New Zealand that channel is supermarkets, while in Australia it’s individual retailers.

45.2% of New Zealanders bought alcohol from a licensed supermarket in the last four weeks, compared with only 9.3% of Australians. Instead, 37.6% of Australians bought from an individual liquor retailer (compared with 29.4% of Kiwis) and nearly 1 in 10 bought from a hotel bottle shop (9.8%), a channel used by just 1 in 100 New Zealanders (1.0%).

All New Zealand’s major grocery supermarkets including Pak’nSave, New World and Countdown are licensed to stock beer and wine on the shelves, but in Australia only some (in some states) are permitted. Instead, Australia’s two main supermarket chains Coles and Woolworths each own numerous individual retailers.

Pip Elliott, General Manager, Roy Morgan Research NZ, says:

“In New Zealand, it’s a one-stop shop for milk, bread, eggs and beer at the supermarket, while Australians have to make a separate trip to an individual retailer for their booze, even if it’s just next door to the parent supermarket.

“That the gap between our rates of purchase is so much wider than the consumption gap suggests that having beer and wine available at the local supermarket means Kiwis buy their alcohol more regularly, while Australians tend to stock up during the separate, less regular trips to the liquor store like Dan Murphy’s, BWS, Liquorland, Vintage Cellars or First Choice—all owned by one of the two supermarket giants.

“Further investigation of these patterns and comparisons could help licensing bodies, retailers and suppliers better understand the relationships between channel and consumption.”

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Roy Morgan Research

New Zealand's leading social and market research company

A full service research organisation specialising in omnibus and syndicated data, Roy Morgan Research has over 70 years' experience in collecting objective, independent information on consumers. Roy Morgan Research was set up in New Zealand in the 1990s and has been collecting information across a wide range of industries in New Zealand ever since. Roy Morgan currently has over 10 years of trended data on a geographically and demographically representative sample of over 12,000 New Zealanders aged 14+.

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