What a difference a month can make. Just when the retail landscape was heading back to a state of relative normality...
another wave of lockdowns reversed the recent trend. New Zealander’s online spending was up 27.1% compared to August last year (July saw just a 2.8% increase on July 2019). For the August Quarter, spending was up 14.2%.
In a similar result, our online spending this August was up 23.8% on July. It’s no surprise really that when most retail's doors are are closed in our largest city, that consumers will look online for their wants and needs.
All the categories we measure experienced a rise in spending. Leading the growth rates was the Furniture, Housewares and Hardware category, with spending up 93% on August last year. In the original Lockdown period we noticed this online category perform very strongly also. Perhaps as another round of Lockdowns begun, those of us that didn’t kit out the new ‘home-office’ have now needed to. The Groceries & Liquor category also performed strongly, up 20% on last year, and up 28% on July. The thought of lining up for entry into the Supermarkets possibly putting off a few would-be-shoppers.
