Category: Public Media

Source: Radio New Zealand

Households remain under pressure from high costs as they approach the busy shopping period, with many likely to turn to debt or additional income sources to pay for presents.

A nationwide survey by accounting software firm MYOB, showed 35 percent expected to feel financially better off in a year’s time, while 38 percent expected to be about the same, and 24 percent believed they would be worse off.

The survey polled just over 1000 adults across the country.

Looking back at the year, a third said their financial position was the same as it was this time last year, while a quarter felt better off, and 42 percent felt worse off.

“New Zealanders have shown remarkable resilience in what has been another challenging year for local households, and it’s clear from the response coming through in our survey that the financial strain continues to be felt deeply,” MYOB chief customer officer Dean Chadwick said.

“However, we are starting to see a shift in confidence, likely helped by easing interest rates and a sense that the worst of some cost pressures may be behind us.”

The survey also asked about households’ shopping plans for the Christmas period.

More than half expected to spend about the same on gifts last year, and 15 percent set to spend more, while more than a quarter planned to cut back.

MYOB said to help cover costs, people were turning to side hustles or additional income sources, or turn to credit or buy-now-pay-later options.

“For many Kiwi families, the pressure to spend up over the season can be particularly tough – especially when relying on credit – and taking on extra work to make Christmas possible can also put an extra load on already strained households,” Chadwick said.

On average, people expected to spend $140 on gifts per person in the holiday season, compared to $163 the year before.

The survey also showed, on average, people expected to spend $415 on food and drink over the Christmas/New Year period, compared to $468 a year ago.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Napier Port has had a strong profit increase on higher cargo volumes.

Key numbers for the year ended September compared with a year ago:

• Net profit $30.9m vs $24.8m
• Underlying profit $28.3m vs $20.7m (excludes one-off unusual items)
• Revenue $157.7m vs $141.3m
• Container vols 250k vs 230k
• Bulk cargo 3.4m tonnes vs 3.5m
• Forecast 2026 underlying earnings between $70m-$74m
• Full year dividend 14.5 cents per share vs 9 cps

The country’s fourth biggest port handled more cargo with a rise in container volumes offsetting a dip in log exports.

Chief executive Todd Dawson said the region had rebounded after Cyclone Gabrielle and the port was benefiting from the “breadth and depth” of the recovery.

“It is pleasing to see many of our region’s cargo owners, who produce the high-value food and fibre products we export, benefiting from good growing and improved market conditions during the year.”

He said the increase in container volumes had pressured its resources, and it would invest in more equipment to handle the growth.

The lift in container revenue offset a drop in bulk cargo, which reflected lower log exports, while revenue from cruise ships also decreased in line with fewer visits .

Dawson said revenue was also supported by shipping lines using Napier as a transhipment point because of congestion and delays at other ports.

The bottom line was boosted by a final cyclone insurance payout of $7.5 million.

Dawson expected growth for the port to be driven by local food exporters.

“While regional exporters continue to face trade uncertainties in international export markets, the trade outlook for the region’s food and fibre exports remains positive.”

However, cruise ship visits were expected to fall further with 60 bookings so far for the coming season.

The company said it would pay staff a bonus and it increased the dividend payout to shareholders.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Radius’s net profit has more than tripled in line with expectations.

The aged residential care provider made $6.3 million in the six months ended September compared with $2m the year earlier.

Chief executive Andrew Peskett said occupancy levels were maintained at high levels, averaging 95 percent for the half year.

“Occupancy has remained above 95 percent during October and November,” he said.

“Continued improvements in bed mix, accommodation supplement growth, control of operating costs and the contribution of Cibus Catering assisted the strong first half year performance.”

He said the second half of the year was expected to be broadly consistent with the first half.

First half underlying profit was up 41 percent to about $15m, with total revenue up 17 percent to just over $100m.

The interim dividend rose to 2.2 cents per share from 0.7 cents per share the year earlier.

Peskett said record operating cashflow delivered a strengthened balance sheet and progress against the company’s capital management.

Net bank debt reduced to $63.7m giving the company headroom for development plans.

Radius Care was recently granted approval in principle by the Westland District Council to develop an 80-bed care home and a 55-villa retirement village in Hokitika, with broad support from the local community.

Peskett said 15 additional opportunities to develop new-build care homes around the country were now being actively pursued, with strong support from external property investors.

The company was also developing existing retirement villages, 12 additional villas to be built at Matamata and Clare House in Invercargill.

“The acquisition of St Allisa, a 109-bed care home in Christchurch, completed on 30 May, has been a successful example of capital light growth,” Peskett said.

He said Radius Care’s expansion into home care services required minimal capital, while helping to ease hospital congestion and expand Radius Care’s market reach.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Amid anemic consumer spending, some businesses are turning to novel ways of selling goods in mystery packages to boost sales.

Colloquially called “blind boxes”, the packages hide the contents so that consumers don’t know exactly what they’re buying.

It’s a concept with origins that can be traced back to Asia, with businesses stocking Asian goods among the adopters.

Chinese toy store Pop Mart immediately springs to mind, having made waves this year by stocking blind boxes of celebrity “ugly-cute” characters Labubu and, more recently, Twinkle Twinkle.

On social media, consumers have been sharing images of blind box meals they ordered from a couple of leftover-saving apps that launched in New Zealand last month.

Businesses have been selling clothes, jewellery and desserts in blind boxes, with one Auckland restaurant also providing mystery menus.

Auckland’s Fluffy Monsta Cakery has been selling blind box desserts for more than two years.

Their blind box sale every two weeks was so popular that many customers missed out if they failed to put their names down fast enough when orders were placed in the bakery’s WeChat group.

“We opened the orders on Monday at 8pm and closed them at 8:50pm,” said Eva Lian, the cakery’s founder.

“We got 400 orders in just 50 minutes,” she said.

“Had we left the queue open for longer, there would have been more orders, but we simply couldn’t handle any more than that.”

The cakery typically offered a few flavour categories for consumers to choose from, including fresh fruit, durian, pork floss, taro and chocolate, but customers wouldn’t know what was inside the dessert box.

For example, a durian-themed blind box would contain four different pieces of dessert, all containing durian, but people won’t know what the specific items were, Lian said.

“Our goal is for customers to feel genuinely surprised when they open a blind box, with everything fresh and delicious,” she said.

“The thrill that comes from uncertainty” also prompted the purchase, she said.

“For families with children, there’s the added joy of wondering what type of blind box will arrive. This element of unpredictability makes the experience even more exciting.”

Gone Good is one of the two apps available in New Zealand that allow consumers to grab mystery bags of unsold food at low prices.

General Manager Quinn Davis said the business had been “blown away by the response” after its launch in Auckland.

“The Auckland community embraced the concept immediately,” Davis said.

“We sold out on our second day of operations, reached number one in the App Store for Food & Drink and have had strong interest from other regions eager for us to launch there,” he said.

The idea wasn’t new, with a conceptually similar app named Too Good To Go proving popular internationally after starting in Denmark in 2015.

“The mystery box concept makes food rescue fun and effortless,” Davis said.

“Customers get the thrill of a surprise meal at a great price, while stores save time by not having to list or set aside exact items,” he said.

“It also ensures the platform stays true to its purpose – reducing real surplus rather than curating menus.”

Auckland woman Tiki Jiang was among many who fell in love with blind box toys when Pop Mart’s Labubu went viral earlier this year.

Jiang now owns more than 20 of the “ugly-cute” plushy toys.

“Sometimes the official website would release new products without any notice, so back then I’d check Pop Mart’s official website every day on my phone, constantly refreshing it,” she said.

“Sometimes you’d get lucky and catch a new release.”

Several months later, Jiang discovered a new favourite Pop Mart character – the unconventional Twinkle Twinkle toy.

“I would always buy a whole tray of them,” Jiang said, explaining that a full set contained nine or 12 different designs depending on which generation of the toy people were getting.

Enthusiasts typically buy whole trays to increase the chance of collecting all the designs.

It’s common for a tray to include repeated designs, but Jiang managed to collect almost a full set of the first four generations of Twinkle Twinkle – spending more than $1000 in the process.

Jiang said she didn’t care enough to try to secure the only design in the series that was missing from one of the sets as she was not as frantic as she used to be.

“I think these [blind box toys] aren’t as popular as they used to be,” she said.

“Looking back, I honestly don’t know what I was thinking,” she said.

“I felt silly. Why was I refreshing the page all the time for that? Such a waste of time … I have passed that phase now.”

Chinese diners have been sharing their experience at Auckland’s 81st Floor Restaurant, which offers mystery menus for a set price, on social media platform RedNote.

For $68 or $88, customers can order an assortment of Chinese dishes without knowing beforehand what they will receive.

RedNote user Pang Pang Da said they would visit the restaurant again after being impressed by the taste of the dishes served as part of the $88 package.

However, diner Vivian Peng was disappointed with the restaurant’s $68 package, which is designed for two or three people.

Although she felt the portions were large enough, Peng expected the dishes to be better in quality.

“If it was before, I would have thought it was good value for money,” she said.

“But the hospitality industry is tough now – competition is intense – so my expectations for something to be both affordable and high quality have gone up. That’s why I felt a little disappointed,” she said.

“People naturally come with a sense of anticipation with blind boxes. It’s different from regular products, where you know exactly what you’re getting and what the price is.

“With blind boxes, businesses can easily end up putting in a lot of effort without getting much appreciation in return.

“If a customer has high expectations, or if that day’s blind box isn’t as good as the items they have seen in other people’s social media posts – since the dishes change every day – they might feel a bit disappointed.”

The restaurant did not respond to RNZ’s request for comment.

Michael Lee, director of MBA in Marketing at the University of Auckland, said blind box experiences were believed to have started in Japan in the 1960s as a way for retailers to sell unsold products.

Retailers in Japan traditionally sell such sealed “lucky bags” of mystery products at a significant discount over the new year period.

“But the idea of a surprise has been around since humans started giving each other surprise gifts,” Lee said.

He said any product where customers buy a package without knowing exactly what they’ll get but were motivated by the excitement of the surprise fell into the category of a blind box.

Collectible sports cards, Kinder Surprise eggs or the small toys tucked inside cereal boxes were some examples, he said.

“The main driver is the element of surprise,” Lee said. “People love to be surprised, provided the surprise is a good one.”

He said another aspect of consumer psychology that would affect the success or failure of blind boxes was “expectation disconfirmation theory”, which turns on whether people’s expectations are confirmed or not.

If people received worse than they expected, it would lead to dissatisfaction, and vice versa, he said.

Lee believed blind box sales would be rare as New Zealand was a low-wage economy, and consumers would most likely want to know what they were buying.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Auckland hotels are sold out tonight as Metallica rocks Eden Park and the world’s largest indigenous education conference continues.

But a hotel association is warning that doesn’t mean the industry is suddenly thriving.

The city’s cultural and events agency, Tātaki Auckland Unlimited, said 40,000 visitor nights were expected from Metallica fans alone.

The World Indigenous Peoples’ Conference on Education at the Aotea Centre this week brought 3800 delegates from around the globe who will add another 16,000 visitor nights over the course of the five-day event, it said.

It means hotels are at capacity on Wednesday which would be a welcome boost for Auckland’s visitor economy, Tātaki Auckland Unlimited’s destination director Annie Dundas said.

“From metal militia to educators, everyone contributes to the vibrancy of our region and the strength of our visitor economy.

“The energy they bring before, during and after these events, is felt in our streets, our hotels and our hospitality venues.” 

However, Hotel Council Aotearoa strategic director James Doolan told First Up while there have been a few “full out” days in the last few years coinciding with major events, occupancy rates still haven’t recovered following the pandemic.

“So that means hotels have been doing it tough, moteliers have been mortgaging their properties to stay alive, and it’s far too soon to have one good week and for all of us to start acting like all of the problems have been solved,” he said.

“Hotels and motels and restaurants, they’re not only open for one or two days a year, they’re open 365 days a year including on cold winter weeknights.”

Doolan hoped to see more concerts at Eden Park, and looked forward to the long-delayed International Convention Centre opening in February.

But he wanted local and central government to invest more in marketing to attract major events to Auckland.

Dundas said the agency shared the industry’s ambitions, and a long-term funding solution was essential.

To bridge the funding gap it was relying on temporary sources like the targeted rate that pays for developing the city centre, a budget contribution from Mayor Wayne Brown, and the organisation’s own operating funds, she said.

They’ve also welcomed the government’s recent $70 million investment to boost events and tourism.

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