Carolyn Young: Retail NZ CEO on retail activity increasing by 1.9% in the September quarter

Good news for the retail sector as sales increase across the country. 

Stats NZ data shows the total volume of sales increased 1.9% in the September quarter, equalling more than $470 million. 

The growth was driven by motor vehicles and electronic goods, which saw the biggest boost this quarter. 

Retail NZ CEO Carolyn Young told Mike Hosking the start of a new Government year may play a role in the rising numbers. 

She says leases may expire and people may need new vehicles, which happens in the third quarter. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And yet more evidence that the turnaround is on. As
Andrew mentioned a couple of moments ago, the retail numbers
look pretty good, don't they. Q three up one point
nine percent, that's four hundred and seventy two million dollars.
Electronic goods were loving them, up nine point eight percent,
motor eacles and parts up seven point two percent. Carolyn Young,
Retail New Zealand CEO, is with us. Carolyn, Good morning, Marina, Mike,
how are you very well? Indeed, do you join us
this morning with a party hatting some streamers on?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Absolutely? Look, we take any good news we can and
it's Black Friday today, so we're hoping all of your
listeners are going to get out there and get some
bargains in New Zealand shop.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
What happened in Q three? Do you reckon?

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Look? You know, when you think about motor vehicles, when
you look at the actual numbers versus the season adjusted,
you know motor vehicles are nine point two and electronic
goods up twenty three point three. I think that you're
largely there'll be a little bit about end of government years.
So one July is the start of the new government year,
and some people with contracts may have things that have

(00:57):
outlined in terms of that way, and we know that
with large items they can be really lumpy. So if
leases had come up and people had to repurchase new
vehicles or any of those sorts of things, that may
well clearly obviously happened. And that's that third quarter. So
that makes a significant difference when you take those out

(01:19):
on everything else. But look, you've got to take anything
where you can in terms of retail at the moment.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
That is the truth regionally, fourteen of sixteen regions. You
can't argue with that. That's that's broad based, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, yeah, no, it's good. It's you know, we haven't
been able to have conversation like this for a very
long time.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
And just to confirm this is this is inflation adjusted.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
No, the actuals would be the actual numbers, is my understanding.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
So does does that take the spin off them? Then?
In that case, have you take inflation out of these
numbers or not? I mean, is a trend we've got
a trend here or not? Is what I'm trying to
work out.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Well early days. But it's said, you know, the whole
Green Shoots conversation at the start of something, because if
you take out twenty three point two percent increase in
electronic goods and nine point two of motor vehicles, you
know it's mixed for some of the other categories where
you've still but you know, we're still looking at a
quarter where we're saying we're up. So we haven't done

(02:20):
that in a very long time, and you know, that
could give us a really good indication that the Reserve
Bank cuts of the official cache rate of starting starting
to have an impact for consumers.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
And so this is Q three. What's your vibe on
where we're right now?

Speaker 2 (02:35):
In Q four in terms of discretionory spend, the retailers
and those categories are still saying it's a bit mixed.
They're really needing more. Look, we've had some news from
some of the bigger retailers about some challenges that they're facing,
and this next four weeks are critical. So you know,

(02:57):
if we can see an uplift and snmptis and especially
after the official cash rate change on Wednesday, then you
know that will set us up potentially for a stronger
twenty twenty six.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
Well, let us hope. So Carolyn, always good to have
you on the program. Appreciate it. Carolyn Young, who's the
retail in New Zealand, See, it's this traffic. I just
cannot work out the traffic. I'm assuming it's Black Friday esque.
Somebody suggested to me it's a whole lot of people
hanging around in Auckland from the Metallica constant. They can't
work out how to get home. I don't know that
that part's true, but something, something's going on and around
the rest of the country. Let me know there's a

(03:32):
frescon about the place and whether you're feeling that at
the moment or not. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast,
listen live to news talks. It'd be from six am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio