The June quarter saw the first rise in quarterly sales since the March 2008 quarter, climbing by 1.1 percent ($174 million). Retail sales volumes also rose, by 0.4 percent (approximately $56 million in 2009 dollar terms). This is the first quarterly increase in retail sales volumes since September 2007. However, this rise comes after a record 2.7 percent fall in the March 2009 quarter. As such, this bounce back may partly reflect an ‘averaging out’ of the statistics, rather than a change in spending behaviour.

Only Waikato saw an increase in nominal retail sales in the June 2009 quarter, compared to the same quarter in 2008. However, focusing on the most recent quarterly changes from March to June 2009, all regions but Wellington and Canterbury saw increases in seasonally adjusted retail sales. This almost reverses the picture we’ve seen over the past few quarters or so, where sales in Canterbury were growing but declining elsewhere. But as the monthly data still shows quite a lot of chop from negative to positive and back, we suggest caution in calling this a general recovery in retail sales.

Seasonally adjusted sales in supermarkets (2.3 percent, $86 million), takeaways (7.5 percent, $23 million) and fresh produce retailing (5.0 percent, $12 million) rose over the last quarter. Other big rises were in appliance (4.7 percent, $28 million) and clothing and softgoods (3.2 percent, $20 million) retailing. Motor vehicle retailing, often a bellwether for consumer sentiment, also rose by 3.0 percent ($47 million).