Christmas retail spending looks to be going well, with a 4.7 per cent rise across New Zealand in the first 20 days of December, according to electronic payments company Paymark.
Paymark , which processes around 75 per cent of all electronic transactions in New Zealand this afternoon said that just
under $3 billion had been spent in shops between December 1 and December 20 - an extra $133 million on the same time period in 2010.
Spending in Palmerston North was up 9 per cent from the same period last year, while South Canterbury, Southland and the Auckland/Northland regions all up.
Auckland/Northland saw retail spending increase 6.6 per cent.
Where the money was being spent had not changed much since last December, said Paymark, but some were seeing good sales increases, including sports equipment store sales up 8.4 per cent, appliance stores up 7.6 per cent and home building stores up 6.1 per cent.
