How are you feeling about Christmas spending? Are you worried about how you’re going to make ends meet? Or are you feeling more and more comfortable that you’ll be able to afford all of the best gifts for your loved ones? It appears New Zealanders in general are feeling pretty optimistic!

A recent look at some Statistics New Zealand data has shown a 1.8% rise in EFTPOS transactions compared to this time last year. Are you a retailer and are you ready for the growth of sales that follows Christmas?

Every year Christmas brings a massive rise to consumer spending, just look at how much more you spend in December compared to any other month of the year. This year looks like it’s going to have more of an increase than last year, so being prepared is even more important than it was last year. But what many people forget is that our modern life means that not only does in store spending rise, so does online spending. Is your website currently strong enough to handle a potentially large increase in visits and sales? Is your online store advertising well enough to capture this Christmas spending? Do you even have an online store?

The retailers associations looks to be expecting a very positive trend for Christmas, consumer confidence is high and in the years following a recession consumers generally take a while to get back to their pre recession ways. Other economists have looked at figures and say they point towards a better Christmas trading period than last year, with all figures being higher than 2012.

These figures seem to have been driven up by high job confidence and the growing housing market, giving consumers the financial security they need in order to be comfortable spending up on their loved ones (and themselves) over Christmas.  

Electronic spending accounts for two thirds of retail spending – are you ready for it?

Make sure to keep your website up to date and don’t be too afraid to ask your web developer about whether your website is capable of handling an increase in sales.

Let us here at System 7 know if we can be of any help!