Total retail spend in New Zealand for the 28 days ending 28 April 2016 was $3.5 billion. This represents an increase of 3.5% compared to the same period last year, and an increase of 1.4% when compared to the previous month. Categories with the greatest increases when compared to the previous month were Clothing & Footwear (+16.6%), Recreation & Entertainment (+10.9%) and Department Stores (+7.7%). Travel & Accommodation and Liquor Stores saw month on month decreases of 7.0% and 2.7% respectively. However, sales did increase when compared to the same period last year with Travel & Accommodation up 7.9% and Liquor Stores up 7.6%. The Home & Building Supplies category continues to see significant increases in year on year spend, this month up 17.8% compared to the same period last year. Other categories to see notable increases in year on year spend were Health Goods & Services (+13.8%), Café/Restaurants/Bars (+8.6%) and Furniture/Appliances/Electronics (+7.6%). The only categories to see decreases in year on year spend were Fuel/Service Stations (-5.1%), Department Stores (-3.8%) and Recreation & Entertainment (-2.7%).
The total quarterly retail spend for the 91 days ending 28 April 2016 was $11.3 billion. This is a decrease of 6.8% compared to the previous quarter and an increase of 2.8% when compared to the same period last year. The decrease in spend compared to the previous quarter is expected as the previous quarter includes the high spend months of December and January. Travel & Accommodation and Health Goods & Services were the only categories to see an increase in spend when compared to the previous quarter, up 12.9% and 2.4%, respectively. The greatest decreases in spend when compared to the previous quarter were in Department Stores (-31.2%), Books & Stationery Stores (-19.9%), Furniture/Appliances/Electronics (-18.2%) and Clothing & Footwear (-17.0%). Home & Building Supplies again saw a decrease when compared to the previous quarter (-13.7%) but an increase when compared to the same period last year (+15.8%). Other categories which saw notable year on year increases were Liquor Stores (+7.9%), Café/Restaurants/Bars (+7.5%), Furniture/Appliances/Electronics (+5.5%) and Travel & Accommodation (+5.2%). The greatest decreases in spend when compared to the same period last year were seen in Books & Stationery Stores (-8.0%), Fuel/Service Stations (-4.0%) and Department Stores (-2.2%).