Christmas already a winner for retail

A total of $2642 million was spent through the Paymark network in the first 14 days of December.

This represents an underlying 6.1% increase on last year, once large merchants additions and removals from the network in the interim period are excluded.

Faster growth was experienced over the second seven days of the month (+6.7%) than the first seven days (+5.4%).

Annual growth rates for the first 14 days were strongest in Hawke’s Bay and West Coast. Spending growth was lowest in Gisborne and Marlborough region (that includes Kaikoura in Paymark’s coding), both due to exceptional circumstances.

The majority (52%) of spending remains through debit cards although the growth rate is faster through credit cards, which today also includes contactless cards.

As an insight into the pre-Christmas spending patterns, the spending rises through the day from 6-7am to reach a peak between noon and 1pm most days and then gradually tapers off. The busiest hour of the last week was noon to 1pm Friday 9 December when 484,135 transactions occurred in the hour.

The noticeable exceptions to the daily pattern is Friday night, Saturday morning and again Saturday night, Sunday morning when the hospitality sector is busy. 

Figure 1: Underlying spending through Paymark for rolling 7 day periods