Wairarapa has recorded a surprisingly large slump in Boxing Day spending this year, tumbling by a massive 21 per cent.
Just-released Worldline NZ data showed that across New Zealand, Boxing Day spending had topped levels from last year, but only just.
However, while Boxing Day spending increased the most on the West Coast by 33 per cent, Wairarapa saw the biggest drop, of 21 per cent.
Worldline said figures for the full six-week pre-Christmas shopping period had shown a slight drop from last year.
Its figures covered about 70 per cent of all electronic transactions in New Zealand.
Consumer spending for the three weeks before Christmas Day through core retail merchants in Worldline NZ’s payments network, excluding hospitality, reached $2.89 billion. It said there was an increase of 0.8 per cent when compared to the same three weeks last year, and an increase of 14.9 per cent when compared to 2019.
On Boxing Day this year, spending reached $100.5m across New Zealand, up 2.6 per cent on Boxing Day 2021 and up 3.1 per cent in 2019.
“Together with the spending surge slowing on Christmas Eve, this made for a busy but ultimately not record-breaking six-week shopping period up to Christmas,” Worldline NZ chief sales officer Bruce Proffit said.
Proffit said although this Boxing Day reached record heights across the nation in total, the experience of merchant groups was mixed.
“As was the case last year, Black Friday spending exceeded that of Boxing Day, but both days remain below the spend on the days immediately prior to Christmas Day,” he said.
Spending through core retail merchants, excluding hospitality, in Worldline NZ’s payments network over the full six weeks of pre-Christmas spending, which included Black Friday sales, showed spending reached $5.21 billion.
That was down 0.7 per cent for the same six weeks in 2021 and up 13.6 per cent on the same period in 2019.
