We're flashing the plastic in billions

By AINSLEY THOMSON

Shoppers have been on an electronic spending spree, pushing record amounts of money through the Eftpos system.

On Christmas Eve, New Zealanders transferred an extraordinary $131 million via Eftpos.

But even when the Christmas frenzy waned, people kept spending.

The second biggest day of the year for Eftpos transactions was New Year's Eve, when about $78 million was transferred from people's accounts to merchants. And although Christmas Eve broke all records, the whole month was a bumper for electronic transactions.

About $2.5 billion was spent during the month through Eftpos, up 6 per cent on the previous year. Over the entire year, $24 billion was spent using the plastic cards.

Barry Hellberg, from the Retail Merchants Association, said the 6 per cent increase confirmed his belief that both nationally and regionally last month had been a good one for retailers.

"I think it's because of all the traditional reasons associated with Christmas," he said. "It's a family time and buying consumer goods is part of the traditional pattern, whether we like it or not."

Farmers chief executive Nick Lowe said the chain's shops had been busy over Christmas, particularly during the post-Christmas sales.

"We are pleased with the way the sale is going," he said. "We are trading ahead of last year."

All of the $2.5 billion of transactions were processed through the Paymark Eftpos system, which is run by Electronic Transaction Services.

Darryl Roots, business development manager at ETSL, said people appeared to be shopping more.

The Stirling Sports manager at St Lukes, Mel Laird, said its sale, which had started on Boxing Day, had gone exceptionally well.

"We got rid of most of the stock we had on sale."

At Max Fashions' store on Queen St, staff said a lot of tourists from cruise ships had bought clothes.