Retailwatch February 2011

Welcome to Retailwatch for February 2011.

To view full report click here

As we officially move out of the holiday period and people are back to work, you might suspect this social change could create a slight retail rise. As we move further into the light and away from the darkness of the recession, you can understand the increase of 1.8% from last year.

Total retail spend in New Zealand for the 28 days ending 2011 was $2,207.3 million. This represents an increase of 0.3% from the previous 28 days and an increase of 1.8% from the 28 days ending 28 February 2010.

Despite the aforementioned, retail spend is still struggling and with the effect of the Earthquake in Christchurch you can understand why. Although February 2011 saw a 1.8% increase in retail spend over February 2010, if you exclude food and fuel spend is down about 1%. While this could be taken as a sign things have slowed a little, the impact of the Christchurch Earthquake was very significant in the month- during that week, spend was down 22.3% in Canterbury and 8.1% nationwide on the same week last year.

Total retail spend in New Zealand for the quarter ending 28 February 2011 was $7, 696.4 million. This represents an increase of 4.6% from the previous quarter and an increase of 3.7% from the quarter ending 28 February 2010.

Fuel and supermarkets once again lead the increase, followed by eating and drinking out. If you take these three categories away, everything else is relatively stable compared to last year – within a couple of percent of last year’s figures. Home and building supplies has continued to show weakness, but the effect of the Christchurch earthquake on this category going forward could be significant.