Giant of the economy

What sector of the economy does every New Zealander interact with each week (or even every day), is bigger than our total export receipts, employs around 17 per cent of the country's workforce, and has a sales value in excess of $50 billion and a growth rate for the past 12 months of nearly 8 per cent?

The answer is retail, it is the giant of the NZ economy. Many factors have worked together to contribute to the retail market's substantial growth over 2004. These include: 

- Confident and positive consumers 

-  Stability in the political arena (from a consumer perspective) 

- Record employment levels

- A highly competitive marketplace

- Innovative products coming to market

Within the sector, the big growth categories last year were:

- Automotive fuel +17.7 per cent

- Personal goods +13.8 per cent

- Chemists +13.1 per cent

- Takeaway food +13.4 per cent

- Footwear +12 per cent

- Hardware +11.4 per cent

- Clothing/softgoods +9.9 per cent

And where is the action? Excluding motor vehicles, supermarkets represented 24 per cent of retail sales, department stores 7 per cent, cafes/restaurants 6 per cent, appliances 5 per cent and recreational goods 5 per cent.

Retail is an exciting industry with real change happening. Over the past 12 months there have been hundreds of new stores opening around the country with some great new concepts. The retail sector is really coming of age.

Thousands of New Zealanders are proud to be part of this vibrant sector of the economy. The sector draws on a wide range of skills, both technical and creative. From marketing and advertising to IT, logistics, buying and display, retail has a need for all these abilities. There is also demand for research skills, accounting and finance skills, and customer service skills. There is probably no other sector of the economy that offers the range of career opportunities available in retail.

We have all heard the quote `are you being served?', but few realise that behind this simple question there is a whole army of people making sure that the goods made in some factory far away are available to the consumer in the right place, at the right time and at the right price.