New Zealand consumers spent more in 2022 than in any full year previously through Worldline NZ’s payments network, but the spending pattern was mixed by year end and the New Year has started in a similar vein.
Consumer spending set a new high in 2022 through Core Retail merchants in Worldline NZ’s payments network (excluding Hospitality) reaching $35.93B, up 4.7% on 2021 and up 13.6% on 2019. The average transaction size in 2022 was $52.01, up 2.5% from 2021.
Worldline NZ’s Chief Sales Officer, Bruce Proffit says two of the major economic themes of 2022 – inflation and recovery from lockdowns – can be seen in Worldline NZ’s figures. “The average transaction value increased across a wide range of sectors although these increases did not match the 2022 inflation rate, suggesting that shoppers did adjust their spending to meet their budget constraints,” he says.
“The removal of lockdowns most strongly influenced the Hospitality sector, where spending through Worldline NZ’s network was up 11.9% in 2022, to $10.92B. However, this total is marginally below the pre-Covid levels of 2019 (-0.2%), no doubt an impact of there being fewer international visitors.”
Proffit says 2022 ended on a mixed note, which has also been the case in the first week of 2023. “We previously reported spending in the busy six-week pre-Christmas period of 2022 being slightly down on 2021. We can now report a modest increase in spending for the full month of December 2022 over December 2021, which has persisted in the first week of January 2023.”
Consumer spending (excluding Hospitality) was $3.92B in December 2022, up 1.5% on December 2021 and up 15.6% on 2019. Within these totals, there was annual spending growth in South Island regions and some North Island regions but lower spending in December in the large North Island regions, relative to a year ago. The annual growth rate was highest in West Coast (+11.2%) and lowest in Wellington (-1.2%).
Meanwhile, consumer spending in the Core Retail sectors (excluding Hospitality) through Worldline NZ’s payments network was a little over $661m in the first seven days of 2023, up 1.6% on 1-7 January 2022 and up 19.7% on 2019. The year started with highest annual regional spending growth in Otago (+12.6%), Southland (+11.3%) and Palmerston North (+10.2%). Spending was below the first seven days of 2022 in Waikato (-3.4%), Bay of Plenty (-5.4%), Taranaki
