Latest / Best of Business / Carolyn Young: Retail NZ CEO on retail spending trending upward before Iran conflict

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Carolyn Young: Retail NZ CEO on retail spending trending upward before Iran conflict · Best of Business

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  Speaker 2: Good afternoon, Here wee's are starting to open their wallets again.
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  Speaker 2: Stat's New Zealand card data show spending rows two point
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  Speaker 2: four percent in February compared with a year ago. This is,
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  Speaker 2: of course a welcome boost for businesses after a tough
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  Speaker 2: holiday period and frankly a tough few years. Carolyn Young
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  Speaker 2: is the CEO of Retail New Zealand. Hi, Carolyn Chroder,
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  Speaker 2: how are you going? I'm very well, thank you. What
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  Speaker 2: are the highlights in these numbers for you?
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  Speaker 3: Look, I think the highlight THIRSTE is that we've had
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  Speaker 3: two positive months in a row. That's we haven't seen
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  Speaker 3: that in a while. And they're reasonably good numbers, right,
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  Speaker 3: So it's not like it's zero point one percent increase
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  Speaker 3: or one point five percent, had one point one percent
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  Speaker 3: rise in January? Are two point four percent rise in February. Now,
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  Speaker 3: notwithstanding we might have some headwinds through the next month
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  Speaker 3: or two, that's a really positive thing that we haven't
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  Speaker 3: seen for a number of years and you know, generally
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  Speaker 3: speaking across most parts of the sector. So all retailers
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  Speaker 3: would have been feeling slightly better about the outlock heading
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  Speaker 3: into the year. Obviously, the current TM all around the
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  Speaker 3: international conflict, you know, does put a little bit of
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  Speaker 3: a dampner on that. But you know, let's hope it's
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  Speaker 3: a short, sharp thing and we can get back to
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  Speaker 3: business as usual.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I see, hospitals had a bit of a decent boost.
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  Speaker 2: Now is that us going out more often or is
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  Speaker 2: that tourism bouncing back.
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  Speaker 3: It's a bit of both. Really, we're seeing you know,
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  Speaker 3: good tourism numbers come through. You know, February is a
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  Speaker 3: really good month for tourism obviously, you know, usually the
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  Speaker 3: best we're the month in New Zealand. So it's good
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  Speaker 3: both internally and internally and externally for a domestic and
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  Speaker 3: international tourism coming in, so, you know, and some great
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  Speaker 3: events that are on around that time as well.
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  Speaker 2: Now, how worried are you about what is going on
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  Speaker 2: and around and its ability to derail our recovery.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, look, it is a concern that you can't get
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  Speaker 3: away from that. We know that, you know the price
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  Speaker 3: of crude oil has gone from one hundred dollars a
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  Speaker 3: barrel to one hundred and ninety dollars a barrel in
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  Speaker 3: a very short period of time. That getting supplies through
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  Speaker 3: the Strait is really difficult. We know that freight ships
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  Speaker 3: are stopping in Singapore for longer. The longer they stop
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  Speaker 3: in Singapore, we know that you know, they're waiting for
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  Speaker 3: their boats to be full, and then the price of
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  Speaker 3: getting the boat from Singapore to here will be much
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  Speaker 3: higher because the fuel price is higher. Alongside that, the
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  Speaker 3: insurance costs that these businesses for the shipping has risen
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  Speaker 3: significantly and they are all costs that are going to
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  Speaker 3: get passed on once it gets to New Zealand. And
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  Speaker 3: I think two other quick things. One is we're seeing
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  Speaker 3: a ten to fifteen percent increased demand and fuel at
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  Speaker 3: the moment, and that feels like a little bit of
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  Speaker 3: panic buying. We need everybody to just keep calm and
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  Speaker 3: just buy what you need so that we make sure
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  Speaker 3: one that there's fuel for everyone and two that for
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  Speaker 3: the internal distribution of freight getting across New Zealand that
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  Speaker 3: there's fuel for those guys, and we don't have to
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  Speaker 3: have restrictions put on everybody, but we do need everybody
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  Speaker 3: to get back to their normal spending habits and.
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  Speaker 2: Fuel restrictions put on everybody. Like you think this is
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  Speaker 2: something that's going to happen.
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  Speaker 3: Certainly Mobile have been talking about whether they may need
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  Speaker 3: to implement some restrictions, you know, if we're for emergency
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  Speaker 3: services for freight distributors, you know, just really thinking about
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  Speaker 3: where the fuel is and how quickly we're going through it.
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  Speaker 3: When you see a ten to fifteen percent demand and
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  Speaker 3: a number of fuel stations running out of fuel, that
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  Speaker 3: does cause and it does cause other consumers then to
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  Speaker 3: think I must go out and get more fuel, which
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  Speaker 3: causes more demand. So we're really wantly, Karen, I heard
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  Speaker 3: that today, so I think there is some information out there,
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  Speaker 3: and I know that Minister Willis has been talking in
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  Speaker 3: cabinet about what are they considering in terms of making
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  Speaker 3: sure that there is good supply for everyone.
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  Speaker 2: Listen, just quickly on the citizens arrest thing. Why have
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  Speaker 2: you guys come out against it when you consider that
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  Speaker 2: there are dairy owners out there who have their hands
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  Speaker 2: tied at the moment and can't do anything when they're
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  Speaker 2: being repeat burgled.
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  Speaker 3: Look, you know, it's a very complex topic and there
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  Speaker 3: are lots of things that they can do. What we've
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  Speaker 3: said to the minister, and we've said to a number
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  Speaker 3: of other ministers that we're having discussions with, is that
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  Speaker 3: if you took the current settings of citizens arrest and
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  Speaker 3: applied them during the daytime, that would work. But we
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  Speaker 3: don't think that citizens arrest is appropriate for a child.
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  Speaker 3: We don't think that the right to strike something someone
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  Speaker 3: in looking at arrest and something is something that we
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  Speaker 3: want New Zealanders to be able to do. We don't
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  Speaker 3: think that being able to arrest someone for as little
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  Speaker 3: as a stealing a bottle of water or a bag
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  Speaker 3: of lollies versus something more substantive is the right setting.
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  Speaker 3: So it's about the settings not being right for any
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  Speaker 3: citizens arrest happening during the daytime.
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  Speaker 2: All right, Carolyn, thank you very much for your time.
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  Speaker 2: As Carolyn Young retail ends zed CEO.
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