Slowing growth in online retail sales – again
· Total online spending in June 2014 was up 5% on June last year.
· Spending at domestic online sites is up by 2% on the online spending in June last year. Excluding the “daily sales” sector, domestic online sales are up 6% on June last year.
· Online purchases from offshore merchants are 9% higher than June 2013.
· It appears that appreciation in the NZD is masking some of the underlying strength in purchases from overseas online sites. The growth in transaction volumes for offshore purchases has clearly outpaced the growth in spending, particularly over the past year. Offshore transaction volumes (excluding entertainment media) for the 3 months ended June 2014 are up 24% on the same period a year ago.
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Total online spending in May 2014 was up 7% on May last year.
Growth continues to ease – the underlying trend has now been fairly flat since February 2014.
Online spending at domestic online sites is up 4.6% on May last year. This is slower that the 5.6% growth rate in Statistics NZ’s Electronic Card Transactions figures (if we count similar industries), which predominantly includes physical stores.
Online spending by New Zealanders at offshore retailers is 11% higher than May 2013.
RURAL / URBAN RESIDENTS
Total online retail spending by rural New Zealanders has grown 20% over the 12 months to 31 March 2014, outpacing the 14% growth rate for urban residents.
The growth in online retail shopping has been especially strong for rural kiwis buying from international retailers, where spending has increased 27% over the year to March 2014.
Rural residents do more of their online shopping at domestic merchants than urban shoppers do. 67% of online retail spending by rural kiwis has been at domestic merchants’ websites. For urban shoppers, 61% of their online retail spending has been at domestic sites.
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