Retail Sales QoQ

Retail Sales QoQ is the headline result of the Retail Trade Survey, called RTS, run by Stats NZ. It covers retail trade in Division G plus accommodation and food services in Division H across New Zealand. Each geographic unit, called a GEO, is one outlet classified by its main sales activity.

Sales means total sales for the quarter, including cash, credit, commission and rent, but excluding interest, dividends, excise duty and grants. It excludes wholesale, manufacturing and other services, and it differs from the monthly card transactions series. Stocks mean goods on hand at quarter end in actual dollars by industry.

Sales cover the calendar quarter ending March 31, June 30, September 30 or December 31. Stocks measure holdings at quarter end in actual dollars. Each quarter brings one release about eight weeks after quarter end at 10:45am New Zealand time, with the next date named.

Each release shows volumes and values, industry and regional movements, stocks, charts and Excel and CSV files. Stats NZ revises all seasonally adjusted figures each quarter, and deflator updates flow through to volumes. Trend levels after March 2020 do not meet the usual quality standard.

Total reflects 15 industries with yearly weight updates on sales for the year to June. Core retail excludes motor vehicle and fuel industries, while 16 regions publish seasonally adjusted values only.

• Motor vehicles and fuel: car yards, parts and petrol stations, large and volatile, excluded from core.
• Food staples: supermarkets, specialised food and liquor stores, the stable anchor of demand.
• Home goods: furniture, electronics and hardware with garden supplies, linked to housing.
• General and discretionary goods: recreational goods, clothing, department stores, pharmacies and online and commission sellers.
• Accommodation: hotels and motels that follow tourism demand.
• Food and beverage services: cafes, restaurants, bars and takeaways that reflect hospitality spending.

The December 2022 quarter, published February 27, 2023, shows why values and volumes differ. Seasonally adjusted volumes were 26 billion dollars, down 0.6 percent from September 2022, while values were 31 billion dollars, up 1.7 percent or 522 million dollars. Electrical volumes fell 9.7 percent as activity moved to information media and telecom outside retail scope. Motor vehicles rose 2.3 percent, food services rose 2.4 percent and fuel rose 2.6 percent.

Actual volumes fell 4.0 percent from December 2021 while actual values reached 33 billion dollars, up 5.4 percent or 1.7 billion dollars. Thirteen of 16 regions rose in values, led by Auckland up 2.3 percent or 261 million dollars and Canterbury up 1.3 percent or 50 million dollars. Stocks were 9.8 billion dollars, up 8.6 percent or 774 million dollars, led by hardware up 16 percent or 223 million dollars.

1. Collect sales: survey about 2,500 large firms and model about 26,400 small firms from GST and payday data, with quarterly reselection for openings, closures and reclassification.
2. Aggregate values: add current price sales by industry and region, with importance updated yearly on sales for the year to June.
3. Deflate to volumes: divide each industry value by its deflator, a CPI basket matched to its goods mix, to remove price change. Volumes read in September 2010 quarter prices, with no deflators for totals.
4. Adjust for seasons: remove regular seasonal effects with X-13-ARIMA-SEATS and revise all adjusted figures each quarter. Trend is a five or seven term moving average of adjusted data with outlier treatment.
5. Publish change: quarter on quarter change comes from adjusted data and year on year change from actual data. For example, 26 billion dollars after a 0.6 percent fall implies about 26.16 billion dollars in the prior quarter.