Retail Trade - Percentage change in sales 1996 Q3–2020 Q1

Sales: The value of sales of goods and services for the quarter. Sales are published as GST exclusive.
Stocks: Trading stocks, finished goods and work in progress, materials, fuels etc. on hand at the end of the quarter. Stocks are published as GST exclusive.

http://datainfoplus.stats.govt.nz/item/nz.govt.stats/3870801a-971c-49c8-a021-6e3962dce661/14

The target population is all kind-of-activity units (KAUs) operating in New Zealand classified on Stats NZ’s Business Register (BR) to Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification 2006 (ANZSIC06) Division G – Retail Trade, and ANZSIC06 Division H – Accommodation and Food Services.

From September 2017 quarter, Stats NZ started collecting retail trade data under the new design. They are now using administrative data (goods and services tax (GST)) wherever possible, and supplementing this by surveying only the larger retail businesses.
For more details on these changes, please refer to http://archive.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/industry_sectors/RetailTrade/Methodology-changes-retail-trade.aspx

At URL provided, download 'Retail trade survey: March 2020 quarter – CSV' zipped file.

The Retail Trade Survey (RTS) provides short-term economic indicators of the retail trade sector. In addition, Stats NZ use the data for compiling the retail trade sector component of quarterly national accounts (on the production side) and in compiling household consumption expenditure (on the expenditure side).