It seems Alert Level 1 is still conducive to a spot of bargain hunting. Nationwide spending through Paymark by the Core
Retail, excluding Food/liquor and Hospitality, merchants jumped 22.7% over Black Friday and the following three days on
a week earlier. And spending still managed to exceed that of the same four days last year by 3.9%. The increases were
across a wide section of retailers.Figure 1: All Cards NZ underlying spending through Paymark by day for NZ core retail excluding Food/Liquor and
Hospitality merchants.
Likewise the within-month spending jump occurred throughout New Zealand for the Black Friday four-day weekend but not as
much as last year in some regions.
Noticeably spending amongst this group of merchants was below year-ago levels in Palmerston North, Marl- borough, West
Coast, South Canterbury and Otago. The annual growth rate was highest in Nelson and Wellington.Figure 2: All Cards NZ annual underlying spending growth through Paymark by day for Regional core retail excluding
Food/Liquor andHospitality merchants.
Cyber Monday rounds off four weeks of November when early Christmas shopping starts for many. Nation-wide spending
amongst the above-mentioned Core Retail, excluding Food/liquor and Hospitality, merchants has risen 3.0% through
Paymark. Over the same four weeks, spending has also increased 6.2% through Food/liquor merchants. However spending has
declined 0.8% through Food and beverage services mer-chants, 37.2% through Accommodation merchants and 10.2% through
non-retail merchants. Clearly the economy remains mixed.