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Thousands decided on a spot of shopping, taking advantage of the Boxing Day sales, in a strong day for retailers.
Almost every store had a heavily advertised, drawcard item and clothing chains had drastic store-wide discounts.
At general issue, everything was half price and shop staff were struggling to keep up.
This year, Boxing Day was about more than clearing pre-Christmas stock - it was a chance to create some retail buzz, to lead into the New Year.
"There's a bit more confidence returning to retail, and I think retail have seen December as being a month where they're going to take every opportunity that's extended to them," says Barry Hellberg of the NZ Retailers Association.
By 4.30pm, shoppers had spent $77 million in electronic transactions, with 77 transactions per second between noon and 1pm, Paymark chief executive Simon Tong said.
The figures were comparable to Boxing Day last year, but could end slightly lower, Tong said.
On Christmas Eve, shoppers spent $226 million in electronic transactions, $10m more than the $216m spent last year.
Shoppers and retailers carried out 4.2m transactions for the day, with a peak of 131 transactions per second between noon and 1pm - breaking all previous records.
Tong said the value for transactions for the month was up about four percent and the volume was up just over 6.5%.
"From our point of view, value had either been down or flat all the way through the winter. October, November was up 1.2%, but it seems to have been influenced by fuel prices. But December seems to have been strong from the get-go, really."
After the holidays, the company's analysts would look at the figures, to work out where in the country people had been spending, and which sectors fared best.
Newmarket Business Association chief executive Cameron Brewer said the Boxing Day sales had lived up to expectations, despite sunny weather drawing people away from stores and to the beach.
Price reductions at the sales had been substantial and well-received by the public, Brewer said.
There was a large emphasis on payment enticements such as hire purchase interest-free and no-deposit offers, along with matching competitors' offers.
Auction website TradeMe said it had had 10,000 new listings
since Christmas, and suspected a lot were people trying to sell
unwanted gifts, Radio New Zealand reported.
