Retail spend up in July

The Retailwatch report from Datamine shows that Online spend is continuing its upward trend, increasing by 22.7 percent when compared to July 2020 and 1.5 percent when compared to July 2021. Online spend for July 2021 was $703M, making it a record spend within the last 12 months.

The top 3 categories contributing the most towards Online spend are:

Recreation and Entertainment - $195M
Travel and Accommodation - $140M
Furniture, Appliances and homewares - $106M
Instore spend follows suit with spend reaching $4.5B in July 2021. This is a 1.6 percent increase when compared to the previous month, and 1.4 percent increase year-on-year.

The top 3 categories contributing the most towards Instore spend are:

Supermarkets and Other food - $1.4B
Cafes, Restaurants and Bars - $756M
Fuel Service Stations - $460M

Going up, going down

Looking at total spend (instore and online), the categories recording the biggest increases were: 

Travel & Accommodation - $283M: +9.5 percent v previous month (+45.2 percent v July 2020)
Recreation & Entertainment - $439M: +8.9 percent v previous month (+6.0 percent v July 2020) 
Cafes Restaurants & Bars $756M:  +4.2 percent v previous month (+6.2 percent v July 2020) 

The categories recording the biggest decreases were:

Department Stores - $262M: -5.6 percent v previous month  (0.0 percent v July 2020) 
Furniture, Appliances & Homewares - $379M:  -2.9 percent v previous month  (-3.0 percent v July 2020) 
Clothing & Footwear $272M:  -2.5 percent v previous month  (-1.3 percent v July 2020) 

Datamine’s Retailwatch is a monthly overview of NZ’s electronic spend (in-store and online) designed to help readers better understand market trends and develop strategy. The service is free, but you do need to sign up to read the full report.