KEY POINTS:
Retail sales rose a smaller than expected seasonally adjusted 0.2 per cent in August from July, new Statistics New Zealand (SNZ) figures show.
When vehicle-related industries were excluded from the figures, the core retailing industries sales were actually up a stronger than expected 0.8 per cent.
The median forecast of economists in a Reuters poll had been for an overall rise of 0.4 per cent and a core industries rise of 0.5 per cent.
Actual retail sales in August were 6.3 per cent up on a year earlier, compared to the economists' median prediction of 5.5 per cent.
The rate of increase in the retail sales trend had flattened in recent months, averaging 0.1 per cent in the five months to August, SNZ said.
That was the slowest rate of increase since the current period of rising sales trend started in 1998.
Most of the 24 retail industries in the data recorded only small changes from a month earlier, with two-thirds having sales increases or decreases of less than $3 million.
Fourteen industries increased sales in August from July, while 10 decreased. Only two industries had seasonally adjusted sales movements of more than $10 million, SNZ said.
They were the supermarket and grocery stores group which was up $17m, or 1.5 per cent, and automotive fuel retailing which was down $14.4m, or 2.9 per cent.
Auckland was the only region to record lower sales in August than July, with a seasonally adjusted fall of $11.2m, or 0.6 per cent.
The largest increase was in Wellington which had an increase of $9.3m, or 1.6 per cent, while Canterbury was up by $6.8m, or 1 per cent.
In the remainder of the South Island the increase was $5.1m, or 0.8 per cent, and in the Waikato the increase was $4m, or 0.8 per cent.
Sales trends in Auckland and the Waikato had been falling since March and were down 2.9 per cent and 2.2 per cent respectively. In other regions sales trends continued to rise.
Goldman Sachs JBWere economist Shamubeel Eaqub said the interesting feature of the data was that motor vehicle sales were weak again.
"There's been a big divergence between car imports and registrations, so it does look like households are pulling back on some durable spending, and it could be tying in quite nicely with house sales and consumer confidence, and we see further slowing to come," he said.
ANZ-National Bank senior economist Khoon Goh said the surprise was the strength in the core sales numbers.
Part of that was a rebound from two previously weak months, but nonetheless the core increase was stronger than the numbers seemed because of reclassifications by SNZ.
"Overall it shows that consumer spending is slowing but the consumer is far from down and out at this stage"
- NZPA
