By Rachel Morton
The New Zealand dollar eased a little today, slipping below 87 US cents, but it still has plenty of purchasing power for those who want to go shopping online, overseas.
The Auckland shopping suburb of Newmarket was bustling at lunch time today, but not everyone was there to shop.
Some were carrying out market research so they could home and buy products online.
It's easy, it's cheaper and it's pretty reliable," one window shopper told 3 News.
"I did buy some stuff recently from the States which I imported in and it was a great, great thing to do," said another.
The high New Zealand dollar means buying online from overseas is cheaper than ever.
Take for example MAC foundation – bought online from Strawberrynet.com it costs $38, with free postage.
But if bought from a MAC shop in Auckland, the price is $70.
The best-selling book The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is $15.13 on Amazon, including postage. At Whitcoulls, it's $28.99.
And people are buying – 3 News visited the UK website The Book Depository, and it showed that in just over two hours, eight purchases were made from New Zealand.
"We've seen a significant increase in clothing and fashion, and also consumer electronics, which are items that traditionally New Zealanders would have just gone down to the store to buy," says Tony Boyte of Nielsen Research.
The most recent figures for internet spending were released in April by Neilsen Media Research. They show online spending is steadily climbing and the dollar makes a difference.
"The amount of spend on New Zealand websites has actually decreased from 83 percent down to 79 percent, and most of that spend has gone to Australia or the USA."
Retailers claim it's not hurting them too much.
"New Zealand retailers will be buying better because of the stronger dollar and that will be reflected in more competitive pricing, and there's a need for more margin in the retail sector at the moment so this may compensate for that," says Russell Sinclair of the NZ Retailers Association.
While online spending statistics are hard to come by here, in Australia figures just released are astonishing. There, online retail growth is up 126 percent – half of that spending was on offshore websites.
3 News