Shoppers tightened budgets appear to have led to a drop in spending on Black Friday, a payment company says.
Still, the highest spending day of the year so far – but Black Friday 2025 fell short of the previous year.
Worldline linked EFPOS machines with bank accounts and card holders and was formerly known as Paymark. The company said payments for non-food goods across it's network reached $55.6 million during the pre-Christmas sale day. That was a jump from this year's previous high of $49.1 million on Easter Sunday.
The drop was 6.2% from the day last year and down 4.6% over the three-day weekend.
Worldline NZ chief sales officer Bruce Proffit said a large number of shoppers still hit retailers over the weekend but the amount spent reflected patterns for non-food goods.
“It appears that consumer budgets are still constrained at this end of the year. Clothing merchants experienced higher spending than Black Friday 2024 over the weekend but spending elsewhere was generally down,” he said.
Proffit said that, across the three groups Worldline monitored, more was spent on food and drink, less on hospitality, and less with on-food retailers.
“Merchants will no doubt be hopeful for spending growth in the busier few weeks remaining before Christmas,” proffit said.
Monthly figures show a small lift in spending
Across all of November, $40.09 billion was spent across Worldline's network – up 1.1% on November 2024.
The highest growth in retail spending was in West Coast (up 6.3%), Whanganui (up 5.4%) and Otago (up 5.0%). However, spending dropped in Auckland/Northland (down 0.3%), Wellington (down 1.0%) and Gisborne (down 1.8%).
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