Christmas shopping starts to take off

Christmas shopping starts to take off
Jenny Ruth
By Jenny Ruth Dec. 17 (BusinessDesk) - The Christmas shopping spree is heating up with spending excluding fuel jumping to $1.27 billion in the second week of December, up 6 percent compared with the first week. That figure is also 2.9 percent higher than in the same week last year, according to Paymark, which processes more than 75 percent of New Zealand card transactions. “The home straight, the final furlong, the last mile. Here we are in the final run-up to Christmas,” Paymark says. However, the spend-up is highly variable across...