New Zealand retail sales volumes edged up in the June quarter, missing expectations, as growth in online buying helped offset a slide in petrol purchases.
The volume of retail sales rose a seasonally adjusted 0.1 percent in the three months ended June 30, shrinking from the 2.3 percent expansion in the March quarter, according to Statistics New Zealand. That was less than the 0.5 percent expansion seen in a Reuters poll of economists.
Stripping out vehicle-related purchases, core retail sales volumes increased 0.1 percent, compared to 2.5 percent growth in the March period. The value of retail sales, which includes price fluctuations, rose 0.1 percent in the quarter, while core retail values shrank 0.2 percent.
"Although just over half the industries had sales volume increases this quarter, they were modest in size compared with growth in recent quarters," business indicators manager Neil Kelly said in a statement.
New Zealand consumers have grown more downbeat in recent months as the end of the dairy boom and peak in the Canterbury rebuild take the wind out of the country's economic expansion, while record inbound net migration bolstering the size of the workforce and tepid consumer price inflation has kept wage growth subdued.
