May 2025 continues to see a decline in consumer spending, down -0.9% when compared to the same month last year (SMLY). Looking at spend change over the last 12 months, only January 2025 stands as a beacon of hope.
Last month the only growth came from Groceries & Liquor. This month, we also saw increased spend on Apparel & Personal (+1.2%) and F&B Services (+0.3%). Groceries & Liquor, with the ever-increasing price of dairy, continues to chart an upward trajectory, with spend up +3.3%.
Key insights for May 2025
- Consumer spending dropped -0.9% this month when compared to May 2024, and Transactions was down -0.4%.
- Groceries & Liquor maintained their growth at 3.3% increase in spend this month.
- Was also encouraging to see Apparel & Personal and Cafes, Restaurants, Bars & Takeaways enjoying an increase in spend, up +1.2% and +0.3% respectively.
- International visitors continue to prop consumer spending, up +19.6% this month
- Tasman cardholders did their best to boost spending, up 8.6%! Taranaki cardholders were the only other ones to increase spend, up 0.1%.
- Northland, Nelson and Bay of Plenty were the only regions that saw spend increase.
- Storetype breakdown is detailed in the table below:
Waikato shopping up a storm!
Apparel & Personal was one of three storetypes that saw spend rise in May compared to the same month in 2024. It was a small increase of 1.2%, but we thought worth celebrating given there is not much disposable income left to splurge on new outfits these days.
Eleven of our 16 regions increased their spend on Apparel & Personal this month, but it was the Waikato Regional that was head and shoulders higher than anyone else, with an increase of +13.3% from May 2024 (see chart below).
When compared to the overall national trends, this month’s apparel shopping stands out even further. While spending in Waikato was similar to national trends across most storetypes, we see Apparel & Personal (as well as Home, Hardware & Electrical) had a much more active month than the average in New Zealand.
With Fieldays, New Zealand’s largest agricultural event, being held at Mystery Creek in mid June, there is potentially more retail buzz to come with hosting an event of such a scale!
