Sales boom continues

Press, 22 January 1979, Page 2

Sales boom continues

PA . Wellington New Zealanders are still riding a consumer boom, according to the latest figures from the Statistics Department. The figures show that retail sales in November 1978, were 17.8 per cent higher than in November, 1977. The latest consumer price index show that prices rose only about 10.1 per cent in the same period: thus New Zealanders in November took home from the shops almost 8 per cent more goods than they did a year earlier.

This is a considerable change from earlier la«t year. Throughout the first six months of the year retail sales were only 7 per cent higher than a ’’ear earlier, which meant as inflation was then about 12 per cent, that

people were actually buying 5 per cent less goods. In July, sales were 10 per cent up on a year before; in August 8.3 per cent up; and in September, when higher rates of National Superannuation took effect, 12.5 per cent up. The real boom began in October, as tax cuts announced in the Budget and the general wage order took effect, and State servants received their back pay. In that month, sales were 17.4 per cent higher in value than a year earlier. The November sales, at $538.2M, were actually 2.9 per cent higher than in October after seasonal corrections, showing that the October boom remained steady at least until Christmas.

In both October and November, the biggest beneficiaries of the boom were shops selling “luxury” goods such as household appliances, electrical goods, radios and television sets (up 27.fi per cent in November over the year before), footwear (up 31 per cent) and clothing (up 23 per cent). Other above-average increases were in hardware and paint (up 19.1 per cent), general, department and variety store sales (up 19 per cent), furniture and soft furnishings (up 18.8 per cent), and “other” (up 18.6 per cent). Below-average increases affected chemists (up 15.1 per cent), “other food and drink” (up 14.2 per cent), butchers (up . 13.6 per cent) and groceries and dairies (up 12.9 per cent).