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Speaker 1: Retail showing signs of rude health. New survey confidence at

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Speaker 1: a two year high over three quarters seventy six point

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Speaker 1: seven percent to be precise, so they're confident their business

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Speaker 1: will survive in the next twelve months, up from sixty

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Speaker 1: five point five Also, first time since Q one of

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Speaker 1: twenty three more than fifty percent of retail has met

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Speaker 1: their sales target. So Carol and Young is the Retail

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Speaker 1: New Zealand CEO. And as with us, Morning morning, Mike,

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Speaker 1: how are you. I'm extremely well. I remember the days

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Speaker 1: and it wasn't that long ago, though, dark COVID days,

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Speaker 1: when those sort of numbers, the seventy six was more

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Speaker 1: in the thirties and forties, no one knew whether anything

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Speaker 1: was going to last long. So things have turned around remarkably,

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Speaker 1: haven't they.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, it's taken a while, hasn't it. You know,

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Speaker 2: last January we saw a five percent client in card

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Speaker 2: sales and this January is in a one point one

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Speaker 2: percent increase in card sales, so you know that that

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Speaker 2: in itself was another shift. It's another positive mood. We're

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Speaker 2: off a really low base, so you know it's going

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Speaker 2: to take a while for businesses to actually recover and

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Speaker 2: have some cash flow for you know, investing into the business.

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Speaker 2: But at least it's a sign that we're heading in

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Speaker 2: the right direction, which we've had a lot of talk

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Speaker 2: about that, haven't we. So good to see some data

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Speaker 2: that supports it.

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Speaker 1: The January spend yesterday was down a smidge. The suggestion

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Speaker 1: being is the direction of travel is solid, January might

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Speaker 1: be an outlier feb and March will confirm that we're

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Speaker 1: actually on the right track. Is that the vibe that

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Speaker 1: you would get or not.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, what we actually look as we actually look

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Speaker 2: at the actual cards spend rather than the season the

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Speaker 2: adjusted and the actual cards spend January on January was

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Speaker 2: up one point one percent for core retail, So that's

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Speaker 2: a good point versus the season adjusted, but smooths everything out,

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Speaker 2: whereas cause retail is cyclical, retailers want to look at

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Speaker 2: exactly what did I do last January? And am I

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Speaker 2: better than that this January rather than kind of looking

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Speaker 2: at a smooth space. So yeah, it was actually really

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Speaker 2: positive news for us. And you know last January, you know,

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Speaker 2: for example, apparel in twenty twenty five was down five percent,

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Speaker 2: but actually this January perroll was at one point four percent,

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Speaker 2: so you know, at one point four off, a low

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Speaker 2: of minus five is not you know, you're not going

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Speaker 2: to be singing all the way to the bank, but

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Speaker 2: at least you're heading in the right direction. And retailers

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Speaker 2: have told us that they have lowered their level of stock,

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Speaker 2: so they are selling their stocks that they've got, but

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Speaker 2: they have a lot lower level based on the fact

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Speaker 2: that you know, demand has been so low.

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Speaker 1: Good good on you, Carol, and nice to catch up Carol.

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Speaker 1: And Young Retail in New Zealand CEO. Daughter's got a

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Speaker 1: job in retail of late before the university comes back.

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Speaker 1: She says, Place popping off. Boss was out for another

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Speaker 1: one of his corporate dinners the other night, says Place

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Speaker 1: popping Off says, everything's popping off at the moment. For

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