Despite cost of living pressures, Black Friday is still popular with Kiwis, according to New Zealand’s leading payments provider, Worldline. However, spending was down on last year, both leading up to the 26^th of November and on the day.

Black Friday spending fell almost 6 percent compared to 2022. In-store spending at core retail merchants (excluding hospitality and food and liquor) on Black Friday was $62 million, with a further $64 million spent on Saturday.

For the seven days ending Sunday, core retail spending reached $346 million, 3.9 percent down on the same Black Friday week in 2022, and 2.7 percent lower than in 2019.

Worldline NZ’s Chief Sales Officer, Bruce Proffit, says although spending declined, Black Friday sales once again proved to be a strong draw for consumers into participating retail stores.

“Spending on Saturday was the busiest day so far this year for this subset of Core Retail merchants, surpassing the $62 million spent on Easter Saturday, which remains the peak spending day so far this year for the whole Core Retail sector,” says Proffit. “There does appear to have been some spreading of spending over the week. Black Friday was generally lower than last year across the country, but spending was up on other days in some regions. For example, spending was up around 3 percent on last year over Wednesday and Thursday in Auckland/Northland,” he says.

Unsurprisingly, the Auckland/Northland region made up the bulk of spending over the two-day Black Friday/Saturday period at $54.9m. This was followed by Canterbury ($17.4m), Wellington ($10.4m) and Waikato ($9.8m).

“Overall, the lower spend for the week is consistent with a pattern that has become more pronounced in the last three months, with household budget pressures appearing to act as a constraint.”