KEY POINTS:
Boxing Day sales are increasingly attracting the crowds, with a 22 per cent rise in the number of electronic transactions this year, but the pre-Christmas spendup is still the largest of the year.
The value of Boxing Day transactions also rose, up 33 per cent to $90.7 million, electronic payment company Paymark said.
That paled against the $181 million spent through 3.3 million electronic transactions on Christmas Eve, said chief executive Simon Tong.
The amount was lower than last year, but the number of sales was higher.
The number of transactions per second hit a record 111, with 370,000 processed between midday and 1pm on December 24.
Auckland and Northland accounted for the majority of Boxing Day spending, totalling $35.5 million. The West Coast posted the biggest increase in Boxing Day volume, up 32 per cent to $869,188, while Gisborne, recovering from a damage-causing earthquake days before Christmas which closed the shopping centre, totalled $1.0 million.
"The good weather has no doubt played a part and spending is by and large up on 2006 whether it's been done in Bluff or Kaitaia , with in excess of $3 billion being spent through our network in the three weeks leading up to Christmas," Mr Tong said.
Official data for December sales will not be released until the new year, but consumer spending appeared to rebound in November after being knocked back in October.
Credit card billings rose 1.2 per cent in November, to be up 9.5 per cent on a year earlier, according to Reserve Bank figures out just before Christmas.
That followed a 0.5 per cent decline in October, and a 0.7 per cent fall in Statistics New Zealand's retail sales data that month.
One of the victims of the downturn was clothing chain Hallenstein Glasson, which has warned that with sales down 1.6 per cent for the first four months leading up to the holidays, Christmas and January sales were crucial.
The strong New Zealand dollar had helped lower the cost of importing its goods, but Hallenstein Glasson said it had seen other costs rise, such as rent.
Fellow retailer The Warehouse said last month it expected profit to fall in 2008, and reported a fall in quarterly sales.
Last year's Boxing Day electronic transactions were up 12 per cent on 2005, but below the peak ahead of Christmas.
The Retailers Association expected 5 per cent growth in retail sales for the coming year.
Sales now top $64 billion a year, and the sector employs 17 per cent of the workforce.
- NZPA
