Soaring bills are forcing Kiwi households to cut spending, and everyone's blaming retailers for high prices. But here's the number nobody's looking at: wholesale traders earned $98.4 billion in 2024. (Source: Stats NZ, earnings-by-industry)

That's the people in between. The distributors, the importers, the supply chain operators who move goods from manufacturers to shops. They're not the ones facing angry customers at the checkout. They're not the ones watching shoppers walk past their stores because power bills and rates have eaten the grocery budget.

And yet wholesale trade just pulled in $18 billion more than the entire retail sector. Retailers earned $80.3 billion. Wholesalers earned $98.4 billion. One group is visible, criticised, squeezed. The other is invisible and thriving.

Four years ago, in 2020, wholesale earnings sat at $80.5 billion. Since then, they've climbed $17.9 billion. That's a 22% jump during a period when households have been told, repeatedly, to tighten their belts. When the Reserve Bank has been begging businesses not to raise prices. When cost-of-living has become the defining political issue.

Retailers grew too, but far more slowly: from $67.5 billion in 2020 to $80.3 billion in 2024. A 19% rise. Wholesalers outpaced them, and they did it while staying almost entirely out of the public conversation about who's responsible for expensive groceries, clothing, and household goods.

The gap between wholesale and retail earnings has widened every single year since 2020. In that year, wholesalers earned $13 billion more than retailers. By 2024, that gap had grown to $18.1 billion. Wholesale is pulling away.

This matters because when you pay $8 for butter or $25 for a T-shirt, that money gets split. Some goes to the retailer. Some goes to the wholesaler. Some goes to the manufacturer or importer. And right now, the data suggests the middle of that chain is doing extremely well while the ends are under pressure.

Households are cutting spending because power bills, rates, and insurance have all spiked. Retailers are struggling with foot traffic and profit margins. But wholesale trade just posted its biggest year on record, up 4% from 2023 alone.

Nobody's suggesting wholesalers are villains. Supply chains are complex. Costs are real. But when the public debate about high prices focuses exclusively on retailers and manufacturers, and the data shows the distribution layer earning nearly $100 billion, maybe it's time to ask where that money's actually going.