Online spending growth at local retailers has continued to weaken and is now approaching a similar level to what we see in the overall retail economy.
Data out today in the monthly BNZ Online Retail Sales report for August reveals that August sales were up just +3% from the same period a year ago for New Zealand-based online retailers.
That compares with StatisticsNZ overall retail sales data for the same period of +3.2%.
(Note that this comparison excludes the 'Daily Sales' category which is a serious decline.)
As BNZ noted, "One month’s data doesn’t make a trend, but we note that over the past 6 months online spending at local retailers has only been growing 1.5% pa faster than total retail spending at local retailers. In the 6 months before that, the difference in growth rates was much larger, at 5.7% pa, in favour of online. So there’s certainly been some recent convergence in bricks and clicks growth rates for spending at local retailers."
While overall growth in online spending at local retailers "has been a bit pedestrian", several categories are bucking the trend and growing at double-digit rates. These include: Groceries; Other Specialised Food; Pharmaceutical, Cosmetic & Toiletry; Footwear; and Computers and Peripherals.
In contrast, purchases at offshore merchants were up an impressive +13% on the same basis.
We are spending +18% more on Clothing, +24% more for Electrical and Electronic, +22% for Computers and Peripherals; and +22% for Pharmaceutical, Cosmetic & Toiletry products.
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