Christmas countdown: Shoppers' eftpos spending top $4bn UPDATED

UPDATED: The Paymark eftpos network recorded its highest ever spending day on December 23 with a whopping $255 million spent across the country – up 8.8% on the same day last year – and brining the month's total to over $4.1 billion.

The highest ever peak transaction rate of 156 per second was recorded at 12:35pm. This compares with 148 transactions per second in 2013.

Paymark’s head of customer relations, Mark Spicer, says the figures indicate that more people are leaving Christmas shopping until the last minute.

“To give some sense of the change in the last few days, spending this Tuesday was up 45.1% on last Tuesday. In terms of annual growth, spending at supermarkets and other food stores yesterday was up 12.7% on the same day last year,” he says.

Consumers remained focused on the home with strong spending seen in furniture and floor covering stores. This particular sector registered a 19.9% increase on last year, whilst hardware was up 7.7% on the same day last year.

Elsewhere the pattern remains mixed with spending at book and video stores up 9.8% while clothing, apparel and jewellery spending was up a modest 2.6%.

Earlier report, for December 1-22:
Spending via the Paymark eftpos network for the first 22 days of December is up 4.6% on the corresponding period last year with a total of $3.9 billion spent.

This is up $170 million and involves a total of 76.2 million transactions compared with last year’s 71.6 million, a rise of 6.5%.

Paymark’s head of customer relations Mark Spicer says a late start to summer and lower fuel prices may have impacted on the overall value.

“We’re seeing consistent growth in some sectors such and hospitality and entertainment as we would expect at this time of year,” he says.

“Additionally, an increasing number of retailers are starting their Boxing Day sales before Christmas, which may be contributing to the increase in the number of transactions we’re processing, but the value may be slightly lower.”

Regions performingå well include Nelson, Otago, Bay of Plenty and Auckland/Northland, while spending in slow in Taranaki, Southland and the West Coast.

Spending is also weak in Wellington is weak. Mr Spicer says spending is strongest in the watch and jewellery component of the clothing, apparel and jewellery sector, (up 10.4%), pharmacy, health and beauty sector (up 8.3%), accommodation and hospitality spending (up 8.0%) and supermarket, other food stores and takeaways (up 7.6%).

The Warehouse predicts big Christmas Day online splurge
Meanwhile, The Warehouse Group says thewarehouse.co.nz expects Christmas Day rather than Boxing Day will see the largest number of shoppers online.

Chief executive Simon Turner says the increase will be up by a third on December 25 last year with more than half from mobile devices.
 
Last year 8pm on Christmas Day was the busiest time of year as shoppers went online to take advantage of early Boxing Day bargains.