Household indicators take centre stage this week with retail figures for February, out today, likely to be meek.
Payments provider Paymark released data yesterday which showed pre-Easter spending combined with an extra weekend shopping day made March a busy month.
Steady week-to-week growth resulted in the value of Paymark transactions increasing by 4.8%, the fastest annual growth rate since October, 2008.
Annual growth was higher outside the large urban centres, with Gisborne up 12% and South Canterbury up 11%.
The combined Auckland, Wellington and Canterbury regions (up 4.1%) remained below the national average.
Figures for Otago showed an annual value increase in spending of 8.5% to the end of March.
Transactions were up 8.9% to 4.2 million on the same month in 2009.
Paymark chief executive officer Simon Tong said the latest data continued the theme of a patchy recovery for retail.
"We continue to see variation across sectors and regions this year.
"While some New Zealand retail outlets are experiencing steady growth, others are still finding their feet.
"Our figures indicate we've still got a way before we're back on track," he said.
Easter provided a boost for retailers, the Paymark figures showed.
Thursday, April 1 proved to be the country's third-busiest shopping day with 3.3 million transactions processed through the network, up 10.1% on the same date last year.
Across the four days of the long weekend, total transactions were up 5.4% on Easter 2009.
BNZ senior economist Craig Ebert said while household indicators, such as spending, were unlikely to show any change, he hoped they would at least portray stability.
"It's not until the latter half of the year that we expect the household sector to add full weight to the economic recovery."
Today's retail trade figures would be the focal point of consumer spending indicators, he said.
Those were expected to be about flat to fractionally higher, according to various market polls.
One of the reasons no-one was anticipating strong retail numbers for February was that the alternative spending indicators for the month had already proved tepid, Mr Ebert said.
That was why the electronic card data was just as important as it was a month more up to date.
Retail transactions using electronic cards shot up a seasonally adjusted 2.1% in March from February, the largest monthly rise since November 2007.
Among the so-called core retail category, which excludes vehicle-related industries, the rise was 2.2%, the biggest increase since November 2004.
The actual value of core retail transactions rose 4.6% from March 2009.
Total transactions using electronic cards rose a smaller 1.2% last month from February, as the non-retail category, which includes such services as travel and health, as well as wholesaling, slipped 0.2%, figures from Statistics New Zealand showed.
Electronic transactions for the consumables category, which includes food, liquor and chemist retailing, rose a seasonally adjusted 1.4% in March from February.
Durables, which include furniture, hardware, and appliance retailing, were up 2.7%, as were personal and household services including hire and repair, while fuel gained 2.2%, coinciding with a rise in fuel prices.
Mr Ebert warned that the electronic card data was always "quite bumpy" from month to month.
However, he would have been taken by surprise by another negative result rather than a "decent bounce".
The household thread for data would reappear on Friday with housing and the nationwide residential market statistics being released by the Real Estate Institute.
