We blew $3.9m in a day: Hawke's Bay spends big on Boxing Day

Eager shoppers line up for Boxing Day sales at Stirling Sports in Hastings. Photo / Paul Taylor

Hawke's Bay continues to spend big on Boxing Day.

According to the latest Paymark stats from the traditional shopping day, Hawke's Bay spent $3.9 million this year, a 10.6 per cent jump on 2018.

The jump couldn't be attributed to big ticket items alone, with over 80,000 transactions taking place, a 5.4 per cent increase on last year.

Last year $3.5m spent on Boxing Day, which was down on the average of around $4m spent since 2016.

National statistics showed that although Boxing Day is still very popular for shoppers with just shy of $150 million spent, it is well behind the $253m spent on Black Friday last month.

Paymark noted that Black Friday kicked off the official Christmas spending period, and that Black Friday had proven to be the busier day for spending over the more traditional spending drawcard of Boxing Day.

Retail NZ chief executive Greg Harford said some Boxing Day retail spend had migrated into Black Friday, though he did not believe the day after Christmas had lost its shine with shoppers.

Paymark connects to over 100,000 Eftpos machines around the country, accounting for in excess of 70 per cent of the New Zealand payments landscape.