Last-minute rush on track for Christmas

Christmas shopping in stores appears set to follow the traditional Kiwi trend - leaving it to the last minute.

While spending increased in November in the lead-up to the big day, it was only marginally up (1.2 per cent) on last November.

Simon Tong, chief executive of Paymark, which processes more than 75 per cent of all electronic transactions in New Zealand, said the figures reflected an annual trend that retailers anticipated would lead to a 50 per cent increase in sales in the week before Christmas.

While the spending increases compared to last year are minimal, November spending is 13 per cent more than the January-to-October average. However, annual spending is down on last year.

Mr Tong said that three years ago the company reported increases of about 10 per cent a year. That was now 1.2 per cent.

"From a retailer's point of view, they're getting more transactions, perhaps.

"Perhaps they're getting more customers but those customers aren't spending the same," he said.

"It's been a pretty tough period because we just haven't seen the growth in the volume of transactions that was there two years ago."

Mr Tong said 2009 was among the toughest years for retailers but there were small signs of encouragement.

Spending was shifting from supermarkets to more discretionary-spending outlets such as appliance and whiteware stores (up 18.9 per cent) and book stores (up 11.3 per cent).

But he said one month of data was not enough to draw any firm conclusions about trends.