Category: Business

Source: Radio New Zealand

As vehicle dashboards rely more heavily on touchscreens, concerns are growing about driver distraction.

The body that oversees safety of vehicles in Australia and New Zealand said it will now reward higher safety ratings to cars that reintroduce physical buttons for basic functions.

ANCAP hoped it would encourage drivers to keep their eyes on the road.

NZ Autocar magazine managing director Richard Edwards told Morning Report there were cars on the market where everything was set through the screen.

“There are pretty much no physical buttons other than a few on the steering wheel, everything right down to windscreen wiper settings and the headlight settings and safety feature settings are all within the screen,” he said.

“Now, that’s not every car, that’s only a very small number of cars that have done that. I think we’re in a period where they’re trying to find the balance as to what you can put on the screen and what you can’t.”

He said there had been studies showing that interacting with touchscreens extended reaction times, which could explain ANCAP’s reasoning.

“I think also they’re getting a lot of feedback from people out there and the media, who are noting that sometimes these changes in design are going a little bit too far.”

ANCAP has a very qualified and experienced team of engineers that do look at these things well beyond my pay grade, that no doubt has some reasons for that decision, Edwards said.

Edwards said the European ANCAP scheme were also looking at rewarding higher safety ratings for buttons.

“ANCAP itself, its biggest influence is really across the Tasman, in that a lot of major fleets will not buy vehicles that don’t have a five-star rating,” he said.

“If vehicles start falling from that five-star rating, the sales will likely go down because fleets and governments and so forth are the biggest buyers of vehicles.

“They do a lot of effort to encourage consumers to buy five-star cars too, and I think there is a very strong feeling within the community that if you’re buying a car, particularly if you put your family in it, or for a business group of staff, that a five-star is what you need to have. So, a five-star is very, very important.”

However, Edwards said there had been discussion in recent years that perhaps ANCAP were making it too hard to get those ratings.

He said it may be pushing with what they’re asking for from companies.

“Particularly in context that New Zealand and Australia have such a small market that it’s very difficult for a car company to build specifically for what our markets want in the context of what they have to build overall worldwide. “

Edwards said if manufactures were to make the changes, the development cycle for vehicles in Europe and Japan was somewhere between four and eight years.

He said that was how long it would take to make physical hardware changes, depending on where they were with the cycle.

But the Chinese development cycle was a lot shorter.

“It’s two to three years. So theoretically, they could come out with those buttons or changes a lot quicker, and the Chinese market particularly are the ones who have shifted very strongly into a screen-only driving environment,” Edwards said.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Tens of millions of dollars are being paid out in dental grants each quarter – and advocates say the total cost of excluding dental care from the public health system is more than the government would have to pay to fund it.

Dental care is generally only publicly funded for people who are under 18.

Ministry of Social Development data shows that in the March quarter of last year, just under 30,000 dental grants were issued, worth a total of $22.2 million.

Of those, 9330 were recoverable.

The quarter before, there were 28,398 worth $21.098m. In the three months before that, there were 33,045 worth $24,853.

Through 2023, there were similar numbers granted and a total of $90.199m issued in grants for the 12 months.

Dental grants of up to $1000 are available to people on low incomes and with limited assets each year. This does not have to be paid back. Grants above this amount may need to be repaid.

In a recent report, Citizens Advice Bureau said its clients were worried about the cost of dental treatment.

“Clients are finding that dental treatment needs to be deemed as immediate and essential treatment to receive an emergency Work and Income grant. People who are struggling with eating or speaking due to long-term dental issues cannot find funds to cover the dentures required after tooth extraction. Dentists are not willing to remove a client’s teeth if there is no possibility of dentures being purchased.

“Clients are looking at different options, such as creating a dental plan with the dental care provider, going to their local hospital emergency department, arranging food parcels while they pay off dental bills, withdrawing KiwiSaver funds, and seeking help from budgeting services. When clients get recoverable assistance, their benefit is reduced to pay it back, which often leaves them without enough money for basic living costs.”

It said one client had been referred to it by Work and Income because he could not pay for dentures.

“They can only offer an advance which he would need to repay, but as he cannot afford the $60 per week that he would require to do this, they have declined his application…Miles has been required to take medicine for many years causing the issues with his teeth. Despite this medical treatment being needed due to an accident, ACC will not help Miles as they do not cover an injury that is a normal side effect of medical treatment. Work and Income policy states that an emergency grant covers only immediate and essential dental treatment and does not include dentures.”

Data from the NZ Dental Association in 2023 showed that the cost of procedures had risen substantially over the previous three years, in some cases by more than 20 percent.

Green MP Ricardo Menéndez-March said people were getting into debt to get “basic healthcare”. “Leaving people with rotten teeth and pain in their mouth.”

“While the previous government did increase the amount that people could get before they would get into debt, what we are seeing on the list is still a large amount of people requiring ongoing assistance from Work and Income for basic healthcare, which takes us back to our core call, which is that dental care should be put into the public healthcare system, something that the Greens have been campaigning on for several years.”

He said the current system meant the government was effectively subsidising private healthcare.

He said over the years there had been an increase in the need for assistance with dental care.

‘A significant gap’

Hana Pilkington-Ching, spokesperson for the Dental for All campaign, said it was a bigger problem than many people realised.

“It’s a significant gap that leads to a lot of other issues in healthcare but also economically for the country.”

She said the income cutoff for grants was low and they had to be used for urgent and immediate treatments.

“If someone is eligible and they are under the income limit and the savings limit and they’re able to afford the private dental appointments to get the quote because they go to WINZ, once they’re in that position they can only access immediate relief such as extraction. It’s not an effective model to encourage people to access basic preventive care that would prevent them getting into that situation in the first place.”

She said people sometimes ended up in emergency department and inpatient care because of dental infections.

“It’s costing us more as a country for people to not access dental care than it would to make it free for people.”

The New Zealand Health Survey found more than 40 percent of adults had unmet need for dental care because of the cost.

Ministry of Social Development group general manager of client service delivery Graham Allpress said the ministry knew people were finding the cost of living difficult.

“In December 2022, the support eligible people can get for dental treatment through a Special Needs Grant (SNG) was increased significantly from $300 to $1000. At the same time, the requirement for dental need to be considered an emergency was also removed. Instead, the dental treatment would need to be considered immediate and essential to qualify for this support.

“These two changes have meant that thousands more people every year are eligible for financial support to help cover their dental costs. This doesn’t need to be paid back…While treatments such as dentures are not included in this criteria, we may still be able to help pay for it with an advance payment of up to six weeks for a person’s benefit. This is interest-free and needs to be paid back.

“When someone applies for an advance payment of benefit, we are required to consider their existing debt with us and whether they will be able to live with the reduced income as a result of the advance payment. We will also need to consider whether the repayments will allow a person to pay off their debt within 24 months. We set repayments at a manageable level; this is generally no more than $40 per week for a person receiving an advance payment of benefit. When a client is in hardship, we will consider reducing these repayments.”

He said people who were not receiving a benefit might be able to get assistance to help cover essential or emergency costs and this would need to be paid back.

“We have met with the Citizens Advice Bureau and listened to their concerns. We’re happy to look into any example where someone was declined support and explain our decision.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

EB Games is shutting down its New Zealand business and closing all its stores at the end of the month.

In a letter sent to employees last week, EB Games Australia & New Zealand managing director Shane Stockwell said the company was proposing to close all remaining EB Games New Zealand stores and the New Zealand Distribution Centre.

Another letter sent on Wednesday confirmed that EB Games will close its New Zealand operation on 31 January. The remaining stores will close on that day, with the distribution centre permanently closing on 28 February

Stockwell said the company had “numerous” third parties approach the company after it was revealed it was considering shutting down, but “these parties did not present any proposals or solutions about how to keep the New Zealand business sustainable”.

EB Games is an Australian-based video game and pop culture merchandise retailer, owned by GameStop since 2005.

There are currently 38 stores in New Zealand, according to GameStop’s latest annual report, and 336 in Australia.

It is uncertain how many jobs would be lost, and the letter to NZ employees did not mention anything about the future of the Australian stores.

The chain has been facing stress for some time, including closures of stores in both Australia and New Zealand.

In the earlier letter, Stockwell described the New Zealand business as no longer commercially viable, with a “multi-million dollar loss during the 2024 fiscal year”.

He said the retail market continued to be sluggish and the company was not confident its performance would improve.

“We are saddened to be in this position having already made significant and repeated efforts to turn the business around,” Stockwell wrote.

The company said that there may be opportunities for New Zealand employees to relocate and take up work in the Australian EB Games operations.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

New Zealand’s job market showed a small lift in November, but overall employment remains weaker than a year ago, new figures show.

Stats NZ’s latest Employment Indicators report found seasonally adjusted filled jobs rose by 0.3 percent (6569 jobs) in November versus October, bringing the total to 2.35 million.

Primary industries led the job increase, up 0.8 percent, while goods-producing industries rose 0.1 percent and services gained 0.2 percent.

But compared with November 2024, the number of actual filled jobs fell 0.4 percent (9113 jobs).

The biggest annual changes were:

• Construction – down 3.6 percent (7,172 jobs)
• Professional, scientific & technical services – down 2.2 percent (4,198 jobs)
• Manufacturing – down 1.6 percent (3,820 jobs)
• Health care & social assistance – up 1.8 percent (4,995 jobs)
• Public administration & safety – up 2.1 percent (3,471 jobs).

Compared with November 2024, Auckland and Wellington saw declines, down 0.7 percent and 1.5 percent respectively, while Canterbury and Otago posted gains of 0.7 percent.

Jobs fell for men by -0.8 percent (9014), and women by -0.5 percent (6421).

By age, the biggest drop was among 15-19-year-olds at -5.2 percent, while 35-39-year-olds had the biggest gain, rising by 2.7 percent.

Despite November having fewer jobs overall, gross earnings rose by $380 million (2.4 percent) compared with a year ago, totalling $15.9 billion for the month.

Overall, employment is inched up in November, but the labour market remains softer than last year, led by weakness in construction and professional services.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Employee confidence has improved slightly, but remains deeply pessimistic.

The Westpac-McDermott Miller Employment Confidence Index rose by 3.9 points to 93.8 in the three months ended December, its highest reading since March 2024.

A level below 100 indicates more households are pessimistic about the outlook than optimistic.

Westpac senior economist Michael Gordon said New Zealanders still see jobs as being in short supply.

“However, there was a slight improvement in the December quarter, consistent with our view that the unemployment rate has peaked at its current level of 5.3 percent,” he said.

Gordon noted the index was improving, but from very low levels. He said there was greater confidence about job security and opportunities in the year ahead, but cautioned the labour market would be one of the last parts of the economy to recover.

“There’s a growing sense that the economy has reached a turning point, although the labour market is typically one of the more lagging aspects of the economic cycle.

“For that reason, we expect only a gradual improvement in the unemployment rate over the course of 2026.”

Current and expected earnings growth remained subdued because of excess capacity in the labour market.

Gordon noted workers would have less bargaining power as inflation returned to target and cost-of-living pressures eased.

Regional variations

Results were mixed across the country, with confidence rising in seven regions and falling in four.

Gordon said confidence had weakened in dairy-intensive regions such as Northland, Waikato, Canterbury and Southland, adding that Fonterra lowering its milk price forecast may have dampened sentiment.

“The recent falls in dairy prices may be weighing on earnings expectations across these regions.”

Nelson/Marlborough/West Coast, Otago and Auckland were the most confident regions.

Wellington was the country’s least confident region, falling 3.2 points to 80.5.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Auckland house prices are showing signs of picking up, but Wellington’s continue to fall and increased supply is keeping townhouses cheaper.

QV has released its latest house price index, showing for the country as a whole, prices were up 1.1 percent over the three months to December.

The national average value was now $910,118 – 0.9 percent higher than the same time last year, but still 13.1 percent below the peak of January 2022.

Christchurch prices were up 2.5 percent in the quarter, and Hamilton 2.1 percent. Auckland turned around a decline of 2.2 percent in the October quarter and a 1.1 percent fall in three months to November to lift 0.8 percent.

Wellington was the only main centre where values were still falling, down 0.5 percent.

Invercargill was up 3.3 percent, Rotorua 2.6 percent and Whangārei 2.5 percent.

“A clear majority of the areas we measure recorded quarterly growth, indicating that value movements are now occurring across a broader range of regions,” spokesperson Andrea Rush said.

“With the number of homes for sale nationwide at the highest level in a decade, buyers continue to have the upper hand, with more choice and the ability to negotiate. This is keeping value movements in check, even as activity improves in some areas.

“That dynamic is also contributing to improved affordability in relative terms, particularly for first-home buyers, who remain active across many parts of the country.”

She said apartments and townhouses were under price pressure in Auckland and Christchurch because of high levels of supply as well as higher building and servicing costs, and the fact standalone houses had dropped in price.

There were 35,969 new homes consented in the year ended November 2025, up 7 percent compared with the year before, Stats NZ said.

“In the year to November 2025 multi-unit homes drove the increase in new homes consented,” Stats NZ economic indicators spokesperson Michelle Feyen said. “That’s reflected in the number of townhouses, flats, and units being consented.”

There were 9.6 percent more townhouses, flats and units than a year earlier.

“In many cases, buyers are choosing houses on their own sections – offering more storage, privacy, living space and carparking – over townhouses or apartments that lack these amenities and are often not significantly cheaper to purchase,” Rush said.

“Agents also report that buyers are favouring developments that do offer these features, particularly those in popular locations, over those that lack parking, storage, privacy and outdoor space.”

She said there had been a “reset” in development land values in some areas such as Waitākere, Manukau and Papakura.

“Building costs remain elevated compared to pre-peak levels, alongside higher interest rates, some developers who paid a premium for land during the peak can no longer afford to develop or hold it, resulting in land being resold in some cases at significantly lower prices than originally paid.”

Wellington emptying out

Rush said Wellington prices were now 3.6 percent lower than a year ago, but the 0.5 percent drop was more of a stabilisation than a fall.

“You still are having the impact of job losses in the public sector, people leaving, students leaving, people going overseas. So what you’ve sort of got is an excessive housing supply not only in terms of rentals but also in terms of properties that are on the market and that demand for housing with fewer people looking for housing across the board is seeing pressure on values continue.”

Some parts of the city were 30 percent below their previous peak values. She said that was positive for first-home buyers who wanted to enter the market.

“However interest rates remain much higher than during the previous peak, so servicing debt is still a barrier to potential buyers… But you know, there’s a positive to this. There was a period there where rents were very high in Wellington and house prices were, too. So there’s always a positive side to the reset that we’ve seen since the previous peak.”

Property investment coach Steve Goodey said Wellington felt flat.

“There are some green shoots – there are not as many listings for a summer period as we would normally expect.

“With rental demand, rents have gone down 7 percent to 10 percent meaning landlords are reducing their rents to get a better occupancy… suddenly places are starting to fill up. I had a boarding house with 11 bedrooms and a whole pile of people left before Christmas and I couldn’t get new tenants over Christmas – now it’s back to nine rooms out of 11.

“There’s decent rental demand in Wellington and good quality properties are being snapped up fairly quickly.”

Wellington real estate salesperson Mike Robbers said he was optimistic about the year ahead. The first big round of open homes would happen this weekend, he said. “Normally you find quite a few people milling around… in the last few years the last few weeks of January have generally been quite buoyant.”

Rush said she expected a stable 2025.

“An election year can create a degree of caution and that sometimes restrains activity.

“Buyers and sellers take a more wait-and-see approach. So that tends to happen towards the end of the year during the election year.

“However, as we head into the summer months activity was on the rise previous to Christmas, we do have the situation where across the country we have more properties listed for sale than has been seen in a decade.

“Buyers have plenty of choice, which keeps pressure on prices.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Tougher fines are on the way for electricity providers and retailers that breach the rules, in a move to give the Electricity Authority more teeth to maintain a fair and competitive market.

Energy Minister Simon Watts said this year the authority will be able to hand out instant infringement fines of up to $2000 for minor breaches.

And from next year, heavier duty penalties will increase from $2 million to the highest of three options – a $10m fine, 10 percent of a company’s turnover or three times the gain made from the breach.

“This is about being a credible deterrent to not meeting the rules and not playing fairly in the market,” Watts said.

“It’s making sure that the penalties and infringements are significant enough to ensure that they are a credible threat.”

Watts said a stronger Electricity Authority will improve competition and should mean more affordable power.

There have been calls to split the generation and retail arms of the large power companies, with the aim of increasing competition and lowering prices.

Last year the Auckland Business Chamber released a survey showing 49 percent of people wanted power gentailers broken up, and 62 percent wanted the government to underwrite the cost of new electricity generation.

Watts said the new penalties will match what the Commerce Commission can do and allow better monitoring of the electricity market.

“Kiwis are feeling the pressure of high power bills. The government is moving quickly to fix this by strengthening the Electricity Authority, which oversees the electricity market and makes sure power companies play by the rules.”

The changes will require amendments to the Electricity Industry Act.

Watts said good progress had been made on National’s energy plan, announced in October:

• commenced the first stage of the procurement process for an LNG facility to provide New Zealand with greater security of supply
• assessed new energy projects under the Fast-Track Approvals process which will increase supply and unlock investment in new generation
• started work on a new regulatory framework to prevent dry-year shortages that drive up prices.

“These steps are about making sure New Zealand has the affordable, abundant, reliable energy our economy needs,” Watts said.

“It’s critical to have strong leadership at the Electricity Authority to ensure it can support the market to deliver abundant and affordable energy.”

The government has also agreed to the appointment of new members to the Electricity Authority Board.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Gold Rush: Who’s cashing in on Queenstown? An RNZ series examining the money flowing into Queenstown – and who’s missing out.

Workers are arriving in Queenstown and leaving within weeks because the cost of living is too high, recruiters and unions say.

Despite record-high visitor spending and hundreds of job listings, data shows a growing gap between average pay rates and day-to-day living costs in the district.

Café worker Orla Marshall, from Scotland, was living in a van – the only way she had been able to return to Queenstown after finding it too costly last winter, she said.

She initially rented a room in a flat with her partner in Fernhill at a below-average $220 per week – but it came with “very expensive” heating, she said.

“A lot of our paycheque was going towards that. And we did not necessarily find Queenstown to have higher wages, just higher prices,” she said.

According to Hospitality NZ, hospitality roles in Queenstown paid $28.51 per hour on average – just 2.4 percent higher than elsewhere in the country.

Data from Infometrics showed across the board, the average Queenstown worker earned $69,788 – 12 percent below the New Zealand average.

Meanwhile, both rents and house prices in Queenstown Lakes District were the most expensive in New Zealand.

Rents had risen faster than earnings, to their least affordable rate since 2000, Infometrics data showed – taking an average 27.2 percent of each renter’s income.

The average weekly rent in Queenstown was $707, compared to the New Zealand average of $573.

Groceries, fuel and other expenses all seemed to carry a Queenstown premium, Marshall said.

“I just cannot comprehend how [employers] expect people to be able to get by on the wages that they offer,” she said.

“If there are customers coming in, tours coming in, they are charging more, they are making more – but they are paying you the same as they would anywhere else, which is quite ridiculous.”

‘You can do the equation – it does not work’: union

Unite Union regional organiser Simon Edmunds said in the hospitality industry, he knew of people enduring poor rentals or working second jobs to get by.

“There are certainly some businesses that pay minimum wage in Queenstown – $23.50. Paying $300-400 for a room. You can do the equation – that does not work,” he said.

The average hospitality wage of $28.50 or the national living wage of $29 per hour was far from enough, he said.

“It is not just rent – food prices here are crazy expensive. Petrol is expensive … parking is incredibly expensive, and there are no provisions made for workers to get discounts.”

In 2023, workers had been resorting to living in their cars, tents, hostels and couch surfing to get by amid a shortage of rentals, he said.

Now, many were simply choosing other places to live, he said.

“A lot of people end up leaving. There is an awful lot of workers that come here with hopes. That try it out. That find they are just not saving money or even going backwards, and they will leave for somewhere else in New Zealand if they can, or overseas again.”

Demand for workers ‘crazy’: recruiter

Shauna O’Sullivan, area sales manager for recruitment company Remarkable People, said demand for staff was higher than ever, with hundreds of jobs available.

“It is just crazy busy down here. It is insane. I have been with the company for four years now, and this is the busiest it has ever been,” she said.

“The demand for skilled workers is very high and it is very, very difficult to find those that are staying and can commit to the work that needs to be done.”

She said high turnover was a huge factor in the job market – and she too was seeing people leave roles almost immediately.

“People do seem to be coming through and then leaving quite promptly… we place people into long-term roles and then maybe a week or two later they come back and say, look, I cannot afford to live here,” she said.

Many were looking across the ditch for higher wages.

“We are losing a lot of people to Australia,” she said.

Workers in, workers out

Edmunds said he was not holding out hope for employers to pay their workers more.

Queenstown appeared to be turning into a “high churn” economy, where employers – particularly in the tourism sector – paid poorly but recruited often, he said.

“There are good employers who have long-term staff, but they are a bit far and few between … for a lot of employers, they just accept that that is what you do in Queenstown and have adapted accordingly,” he said.

Edmunds said Queenstown had always been expensive place to live – but it should not just be a playground for the ultra-rich, he said.

“Queenstown can be a place that can have ultra-high-end tourism, beautiful, $20 million mansions and even billionaire bunkers… but what is to stop it from being a place where the people – who actually run it, who actually do the work and keep the shops open, who did right through Covid, who actually are committed long term to the place – actually get some of those rewards as well?”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

• Business confidence improves to highest level since March 2014
• Net 39 percent expect economic improvement vs +17 pct in September survey
• Businesses report better demand, plan to invest and hire more.
• Inflation pressures contained around 3 pct, expected to gradually decline
• Survey suggests annual growth around 1.4 pct, RBNZ to hold interest rates steady

Business sentiment rebounded strongly at the end of last year, with firms reporting improved sales and planning to hire staff and increase investment.

The Institute of Economic Research’s (NZIER) closely followed Quarterly Business Survey for the three months ended December showed a net 39 percent of respondents believed economic conditions would get better in coming months, compared to a net 17 percent in the December survey.

“There is a turnaround in demand, with lower interest rates finally gaining traction,” NZIER principal economist Christina Leung said.

Weak sales were still cited as the chief constraint on businesses, but the pressures were easing, with only 3 percent reporting lower sales in the quarter.

Expectations were for improved growth in the coming quarter, with a net 23 percent forecasting a lift in their own business – up from 10 percent in the previous quarter.

Leung said businesses were increasingly feeling confident about investing in plants and machinery and hiring more stuff.

“Firms increased staff numbers and are feeling more positive about hiring in the next quarter.”

However, she said there were signs that firms were finding it more difficult to find skilled staff in the manufacturing and construction sectors, which could point to future labour shortages.

She said inflation pressures were contained with fewer firms expecting higher costs and also fewer expecting to have to raise their prices, which indicated inflation gradually falling back to the middle of the Reserve Bank’s 1-3 percent target band.

Leung said the survey indicated the economy was recovering but the increase in growth was likely to be slower than previously thought, with annual growth about 1.4 percent.

“With demand starting to recover but inflation remaining contained, we expect no further OCR cuts in this monetary policy cycle.”

“We forecast the OCR to trough at 2.25 percent until the Reserve Bank.. commences increasing the OCR in the second half of 2026,” Leung said.

The manufacturing sector was the most optimistic of respondents, followed by service industries.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

It was a quiet end to December for many retailers.

Data from Worldline shows that spending across its payment network through December was below the levels recorded a year earlier.

Consumer spending processed through all core retail merchants in 2025 reached $4.702 billion, which was down -0.2 percent on December 2024.

The biggest decline was in Wellington, which was down 3.7 percent. Bay of Plenty was down 2.6 percent while Whanganui was up 4.1 percent.

Chief sales officer Bruce Proffit said the data showed a tough retailing environment over the last month of the year.

“There was more spending at food and liquor stores in Worldline’s network across December, which is consistent with generally higher food prices and people prioritising the essentials in their budgets,” he said.

Food and liquor merchant spending was up 4 percent year-on-year in December, similar to the 4.4 percent food price inflation rate reported in November.

Spending across the other retailers was down 4.4 percent.

Proffit said there was more spending online.

“The online spending processed through Worldline was up +18.9 percent in December. This pattern is likely to be repeated amongst other online payments systems, judging by earlier reports and international patterns.”

Boxing Day non-food shopping reached $51m, down 12.4 percent on Boxing Day 2024.

“Boxing Day was generally a busier day for clothing merchants, but for most other non-food stores in our network, their busiest days were still in the two days prior to Christmas Day,” Proffit said.

He said it was clear that Boxing Day spending was not as high as Black Friday, when sales hit $55.6m.

Carolyn Young, chief executive at Retail NZ, said it showed how tough it was to be a retailer.

She said recent announcements of the planned closure of EB Games and the liquidation of the Yoyoso group highlighted this.

“The retail sector has been under significant strain over the last two to three years, with businesses advising that they have been absorbing as many cost increases as they can, working harder than ever as margins are being squeezed, which have created significant challenges for businesses to remain open. We will be hoping for a brighter economy and positive consumer confidence in 2026.”

She said shoppers could help by ensuring they made their purchases with local retailers.

“Either in New Zealand or online but making sure they are New Zealand stores you’re buying from that keeps the economy going in New Zealand. That’s critically important.”

She said growth in the tourism sector would also help to get international money into New Zealand people buying and spending.

“We need further economic growth and job growth. We’ve been in a period of unemployment, we’ve seen unemployment rising, people are still concerned about job security.

“So until we’ve got greater confidence in our job position and you know it’s going to be a challenge for individuals to feel confident about being able to spend on something rather than putting it aside in case they don’t have a job. There’s still more to do in terms of the economy.”

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