Boxing Day blitz: Kiwis spend almost $100 million in sales

Boxing Day sales shopping in Newmarket Auckland and Westfield Broadway. Photo / Alex Burton

New Zealander’s dropped almost $100 million on Boxing Day sales this year, with Wellington and the Wairarapa spending the most.

Figures from Worldline – the company that launched Eftpos – show spending pre-Christmas was up 6.9 per cent from last year, with a whopping $5.2 billion spent leading up to the holiday period

However, despite the massive $100m spend, Boxing Day sales overall were actually slightly down from last year – but still up from the pre-Covid levels of 2019.

“Our figures year-on-year continue to show that Boxing Day is a popular day with shoppers,” says Worldline’s Head of Data, George Putnam.

“It is normal to see spending drop on a Sunday, so to see almost $100m of transactions processed through this group of core retail merchants yesterday shows the record pre-Christmas spending trend that we saw this year is not over yet.”

Spending declines on the day were noticeable in Gisborne which was down 14 per cent, West Coast which was down 12 per cent and Otago down 6 per cent.

A survey for price comparison website PriceSpy hints the gloss might be wearing off the big day with bargain hunters spreading the love over Black Friday and pre-Christmas sales.

The data shows the number of people who shopped on Boxing Day last year dropped 10 per cent compared with 2019.

Liisa Matinvesi-Bassett from PriceSpy said there had recently been a noticeable shift in people’s shopping habits.

“With the popularity of Black Friday and Black Week on the rise, people are increasingly looking to buy items at discounted prices pre-Christmas, rather than waiting until after Christmas Day.”