Bay of Plenty shoppers continue to open their wallets

Moochi women's clothing store sales assistant and duty manager Natalie Clarke says the cooler wet weather impacts on how often the tills ring. Photo/ George Novak

The tills keep ringing across the Bay of Plenty with more than double-digit growth in retail spending last month, according to Paymark figures.

Bay shoppers spent $315.9m last month, that's 11.5 per cent more than what was spent the same time last year, according to a Paymark report.

The Bay had the second highest spending growth in the country, behind the West Coast region which was up 15 per cent, and ahead of Whanganui's 9.7 per cent growth.

The volume of eftpos card transactions last month were also up by 10.4 per cent.

David Hill, centre manager at Papamoa Plaza, said May's turnover was up for both existing tenants and the eight new retailers who moved into the plaza during the past 12 months.

Mr Hill said he was thrilled with the turnover figures across the plaza for last month, compared with May 2016, which collectively was up more than 11.5 per cent.

Eight new stores giving customers more choices, combined with the huge influx of new people moving into the Papamoa area had contributed to this result, he said.

Current retailers are going gangbusters, with more than double-digit growth in their turnover. Double-digit growth has become the new norm for us," he said.

Mount Mainstreet manager Ingrid Fleming said she was happy to hear that Bay of Plenty retailers were experiencing this amount of growth.

Ms Flemming said this weekend had also been "super busy" but retail always slowed down during the winter months and retailers had to work harder to keep the tills ringing.

"We would love to have the streets crowded with shoppers 24-7 but retail is not like that."

Moochi women's clothing store duty manager Natalie Clarke said last weekend was busy with the downtown Tauranga store doubling its sales targets compared to last year.

Ms Clarke said winter stock had almost flown off the shelves last month, but this long weekend there wasn't as many customers around.

"We still met our [sales] targets but it was a slower day," she said

Ms Clarke said the weather had an impact on foot traffic.

Mainstreet Tauranga spokesperson Sally Cooke said the transformed waterfront had been a "game-changer" in terms of the flow-on effects for many retailers and hospitality sector businesses.

"The city centre definitely seems more buoyant and we hope this level of growth continues particularly during the traditionally slower months," she said.

Nationally, Paymark processed 105.09m transactions for $4.963b worth of goods and services in the past 12 months to May 31.

According to Paymark the hospitality sector remained a strong contributor to total growth with accommodation spending up 16.2 per cent.

Takeaway food spending was up by 12 per cent and liquor retail by 10.5 per cent.

This was consistent with tourism remaining a strong driving force, even on the fringe of the traditional summer season, the Paymark data report said.