{"id":147403,"date":"2016-12-19T23:36:15","date_gmt":"2016-12-19T21:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=147403"},"modified":"2016-12-19T23:38:02","modified_gmt":"2016-12-19T21:38:02","slug":"big-changes-coming-to-south-african-spending-habits-this-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/147403\/big-changes-coming-to-south-african-spending-habits-this-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"Changes expected in SA spending habits this Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

KPMG says that December spending in South Africa is likely to be relatively subdued following a turbulent 2016.<\/p>\n

Its forecast comes after research by the Bureau for Economic Research (BER) indicated that confidence among local retailers was in the negative for a sixth consecutive quarter during\u00a0Q4 2016.<\/p>\n

The BER\u2019s index of retailer confidence declined from 43 in Q3 2016 to 34 during the fourth quarter \u2013 any reading below 50 indicates that a majority of retailers were pessimistic about trading conditions at the time. The bureau reported challenging conditions in the market for semi-durable and durable goods due to \u201cnew (and stricter) regulations for the granting of in-store credit\u201d.<\/p>\n

Consumer confidence is currently under pressure from a myriad of factors including elevated inflation, a recent rise in interest rates, weak economic growth pressuring employment and household income, and an unsettled domestic political environment.<\/p>\n

Therefore, the outlook for holiday sales during the coming holiday season is justifiably not upbeat.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So what exactly will South Africans be spending their money on this festive season?<\/p>\n

Wholesale and retail activity currently accounts for around 15% of GDP, with\u00a0domestic companies slowly making way to an\u00a0increasing international presence. Retail will still see a rise over December however, as local schools and the majority of businesses close down.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0December 2015 this was reflected by retail sales of just over R100 billion, almost 30% higher than in the preceding month. This was roughly in line with the average month-on-month jump seen since 2002.<\/p>\n

In a normal (November) month during the period 2005-2015, South Africans spend 17.9% of their retail expenditure at stores selling textiles, clothing, footwear and leather goods.<\/p>\n

This increases to 21% during December as holidaymakers spend more time in shops and in geographies (e.g. coastal areas) where they would not normally access these shops.<\/p>\n

Expenditure on food, beverages and tobacco increased from 7.4% of expenditure to 8%, while stores specialising in the sale of hardware, paint and glass see their share of total retail spending decline from 8.5% to just 5.8%. This is attributed to the fact that many South Africans travel during December and spend less time in their own homes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

During December 2015, stories supplying goods for do-it-yourself (DIY) activities sold around R5.9 billion worth of goods compared to R6.6 billion during the preceding month.<\/p>\n

This was the only category of spending that declined (-11.6%) between November and December last year, with all other stores seeing on aggregate an increase in expenditure during the holidays.<\/p>\n

Spending on textiles, clothing, footwear and leather goods spiked by 47.4% m-o-m to R21.9 billion last December while expenditure at stores specialising in food, beverages and tobacco jumped by 41.6% m-o-m to R7.9 billion.<\/p>\n

Spending on apparel and nutrition during December last year would also have contributed to a 31.3% m-o-m rise in spending at general dealers to R44 billion.<\/p>\n

Read:\u00a0This is how much more money you spend over Christmas<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KPMG has revealed that December will see big changes in spending by South Africans following a turbulent 2016. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":106911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-147403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147403"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":148191,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147403\/revisions\/148191"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}