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The tills were ringing a little more slowly in the South this Boxing Day.
Paymark figures show spending in Otago was down 12.5% compared with Boxing Day 2019, from $3.4 million to $2.9million.
In Southland it dropped 13.8%, from $1.1million to $900,000.
Enterprise Dunedin director John Christie said the figures reflected a hit to Dunedin, in particular from the loss of cruise ships this summer.
"We would have expected them to be down, given how dramatic the effect of the international tourism market is on the region.
"That will be beginning to impact on Dunedin now with the lack of cruise ship visitors coming into port."
Mr Christie said he needed to examine the figures closely to assess the effect on different industries.
"I imagine there will be some parts of our economy that will be up, for example your do-it-yourself spend in hardware stores.
"Until you can compare those, it’s a bit hard to know what lies behind those figures."
He expected the lack of cruise ships would be felt in sectors such as hospitality and retail during the coming months.
Nationwide, Boxing Day spending dropped 2.2%, from $63.6million to $62.2million.
In a statement, Paymark said national spending was up about 20% on Saturdays in early November, before the Christmas spree started.
It put the lower sales compared with Boxing Day last year as partly because of poor weather in some regions this year.
Spending on December 27 was down 23.6%, but the sharper decline was likely because it was a Sunday this year, it said.
Marlborough had the biggest spending fall — down 17.8% — while Whanganui had the biggest rise (7.6%).