Latest / Best of Business / Bridget Snelling: Xero Country Manager on the Small Business Insights report and the industry performances

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Bridget Snelling: Xero Country Manager on the Small Business Insights report and the industry performances · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from news Talk ZEDB. Follow
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  Speaker 2: Now. Small Business Dart up at the June quarter sales
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  Speaker 2: still flat overall, down zero point one percent year on year. No,
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  Speaker 2: but check the regional divide out a Tigo up three
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  Speaker 2: point nine cannibally at one point eight, which means someone
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  Speaker 2: went backwards. This time it was North and Wellington and Auckland.
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  Speaker 2: Bridget Snelling of Zero's country manager back with us. Bridget,
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  Speaker 2: very good morning to.
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  Speaker 3: You, Good morning mate.
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  Speaker 2: If you look at the ag ten point nine eleven
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  Speaker 2: and March fifteen and December for the quarter, I mean,
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  Speaker 2: are they doing all the lifting or just a lot
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  Speaker 2: of it?
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  Speaker 3: Well, they're doing a lot of it. I mean I
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  Speaker 3: think that the data, the Zerosyll Business in Tights data
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  Speaker 3: is showing us that agree it's having a really a
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  Speaker 3: strong bounce back. That data is really impressive. But unfortunately
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  Speaker 3: other sectors are not faring so well.
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  Speaker 2: Right, so one point one overall this is one point
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  Speaker 2: one up in the March quarter, so we're down the smidge.
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  Speaker 2: What's happened there? Do you think?
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  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, we're down ser point one percent for the
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  Speaker 3: March quarter, and that does continue a tolve month trend
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  Speaker 3: of underperformance for small business sales. So we you know things,
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  Speaker 3: I think of what it's telling us is that things
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  Speaker 3: are still pretty tough out there. We're not seeing the
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  Speaker 3: economic recovery for smeethe that we would hope to have
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  Speaker 3: seen from the ocr cut. So you know, we've seen
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  Speaker 3: in June it's down, but actually the month of June itself,
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  Speaker 3: in that quarter, we were up.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I was going to ask you about that. Four
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  Speaker 2: point four is huge compared to what the overall number is.
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  Speaker 2: What happened in June.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I've been asking myself the same thing. Yeah, there's
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  Speaker 3: nothing in particular in the data to tell us exactly
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  Speaker 3: why June has been so much stronger than April and May.
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  Speaker 3: But so I think we can say, well, maybe there's
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  Speaker 3: some green shoots here, maybe there's a little bit of
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  Speaker 3: sign of recovery, but it's certainly certainly overall for the
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  Speaker 3: past year, things have been still pretty tough for KII
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  Speaker 3: small business.
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  Speaker 2: We'll know for once the July August ten and numbers
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  Speaker 2: come in. Long term average that's six point three, So
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  Speaker 2: that tells you where we've been at six point three,
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  Speaker 2: so zero point one. We really are wading through mud here,
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  Speaker 2: aren't we.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right, we're sort of flatlining, I guess you
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  Speaker 3: could say. And we are you know, this as well
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  Speaker 3: below the long term national average, as you've said, and
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  Speaker 3: we are lagging behind Australia, which has grown three percent
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  Speaker 3: in that quarter. So we see that we have still
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  Speaker 3: got sales weekness as you said. Obviously it's concentrated in
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  Speaker 3: the North Island. South Island is performing better and agri
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  Speaker 3: is leading the way. So those are other sectors that
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  Speaker 3: are more sensitive to consumer spending and interest rate. It's
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  Speaker 3: like construction obviously down and quite significantly down six point
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  Speaker 3: four percent, retails holding flat, hostpos down two point one percent,
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  Speaker 3: so you know they are there are still really tough
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  Speaker 3: conditions for those smeths, and obviously with constructions to climb,
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  Speaker 3: that's construction is obviously such a big sector in the
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  Speaker 3: economy and has a much broader economic impact. So I
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  Speaker 3: think that's definitely one that we're watching closely.
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  Speaker 2: And here's the problem you main sentence. I mean Auckland
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  Speaker 2: and Wellington. Wellington's down three point one, Aortlands down one
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  Speaker 2: point three. I mean that's the Auckland, especially massive populations.
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  Speaker 2: You if your engine's not working, you're in trouble, aren't you.
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  Speaker 3: Well, that's right. I mean most of our small businesses
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  Speaker 3: in New Zealand are concentrated in Auckland. Obviously Wellington you know,
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  Speaker 3: as well being a smaller city. But yeah, obviously Auckland
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  Speaker 3: is we want to see strong economic activity. So certainly
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  Speaker 3: I concern that Auckland's not faring so well.
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  Speaker 2: For with all the people you talk to, this green
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  Speaker 2: shoot talk that's been going on all year, do you
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  Speaker 2: believe it? Is it real or is it just noise?
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  Speaker 3: Look? I think for some businesses it's real. But most
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  Speaker 3: of the businesses that I talk to are still finding
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  Speaker 3: things really tough, and actually some of them are super
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  Speaker 3: frustrated that there is chad of green shoots when they
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  Speaker 3: are not yet experiencing it themselves. So I think it's something.
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  Speaker 3: You know, we are obviously in a very unstable global
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  Speaker 3: economic situation right now. I think there's a lot of
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  Speaker 3: consumer uncertainty and so probably people are not feeling competent
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  Speaker 3: to spend or you know, as they may have done
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  Speaker 3: it in a more prosperous economic time, So that's impacting
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  Speaker 3: Snaze right, because obviously they're ninety seven percent of our economy.
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  Speaker 3: They're really feeling the pinch sell. So it's still still
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  Speaker 3: really important. All those messages we've been saying for a
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  Speaker 3: couple of years now about helping SMI to plan ahead,
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  Speaker 3: watching cash flow, paying invoices as soon as you can
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  Speaker 3: to help with a business's cash flow, those things still
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  Speaker 3: really apply. It's parsiclarly, not out of the woods.
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  Speaker 2: Excellent insight, Bridget appreciated as always. Bridget Snelling, who's the
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  Speaker 2: zero Country Manager, with us this morning
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