Core retail electronic card spending up

The seasonally adjusted value of electronic card transactions in core retail (which excludes the motor vehicle-related industries) increased 0.7 percent in July 2010 compared with June 2010, Statistics New Zealand said today.

Despite this increase, the value of total transactions was flat (down just 0.2 percent).

"While most core retail industries had rises in July 2010, consumables (which includes food, liquor, and chemist retailing) was the main contributor to the increase in the core retail series," business statistics manager Louise Holmes-Oliver said. The consumables industry was up 2.1 percent in July 2010.

The value of retail transactions was down 0.1 percent in July, following a 0.4 percent rise in June 2010. The July fall was mainly due to a 3.1 percent fall in the fuel retailing industry. When the non-retail industries (which include services such as travel and health, and wholesaling) are included, the total value of transactions was down 0.2 percent. The value of transactions in the non-retail industries was down 1.0 percent in July 2010.

Trends for the value of transactions in the total and retail series have both been flat since early 2010.

Although the core retail trend has generally been flat since November 2007, it has been rising steadily since March 2010 and is up 2.7 percent since then.

Annually, credit card use, as a proportion of the total transaction value, has been falling since September 2008 (with a corresponding rise in debit card use). Credit cards accounted for 43.9 percent of transactions in the year to July 2010, the lowest proportion since the series began.