Christmas shoppers lift card spending in December

Christmas shoppers spent more with their credit and debit cards in December 2012 compared with the previous month, Statistics New Zealand said today.

When adjusted for seasonal effects, the value of electronic card spending in the retail industries increased 0.3 percent in December 2012. This was the third consecutive monthly increase.

“Shoppers spent more in all retail industries, except fuel, in December,” industry and labour statistics manager Blair Cardno said.

Fuel was the only industry in which the value of transactions fell, down 3.5 percent in December compared with November 2012.

Core retail (which excludes the motor vehicle-related industries) increased 0.5 percent in December 2012. There were rises in all core retail industry groupings this month, with consumables (up 0.8 percent) and durables (up 0.6 percent) showing the biggest movements.

The consumables industry includes food and liquor retailing. The durables industry includes furniture, hardware, and appliance retailing.

When the two industries outside the retail series (services, up 0.1 percent, and non-retail, up 0.7 percent) are combined with the 0.3 percent increase in retail, the total value of electronic card spending increased 0.4 percent.

Trends for the value of transactions in the total, retail, and core retail series have all generally been increasing since these series began in October 2002.

In actual (unadjusted) terms, there were 122 million transactions in December 2012, with an average value of $56. The total amount spent across all transactions was $6.8 billion.

See also:  Electronic Card Transactions: December 2012  –  Information release