Black Friday bigger than Boxing Day for NZ businesses

Black Friday and Cyber Monday mark the biggest shopping event of the year for NZ businesses – a sales and spending occasion that is now bigger than Boxing Day. NZ Post delivers over half of all parcels bought online and is preparing for what is expected to be one of the busiest weeks of the year.

NZ Post’s recent The Full Download 2019 report showed that last year one in three New Zealanders bought something online in Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, spending a total of $130 million, compared to under $80 million on Boxing Day.

Of this $130 million in total spend, $90 million was spent with New Zealand retailers.

NZ Post General Manager of Business Marketing Chris Wong says this is great news for New Zealand businesses. “Kiwis say they want to support Kiwis, particularly at Christmas. Throughout 2018 Kiwis spent almost twice as much with New Zealand online stores compared to international.”

Black Friday and Cyber Monday have contributed to New Zealanders spending 30% more shopping online at this time of year compared to any other time. Christmas occurring just one month later is a factor in Kiwis spending more online – with 44% of Kiwi shoppers saying they spend more than they normally would, and 19% saying they use the opportunity to ‘stock up’ with Christmas just around the corner.

“Kiwis tend to use the opportunity of Black Friday sales to buy things like clothes and shoes as well as homewares and electronics – all those classic Kiwi Christmas presents like togs and e-readers. At this time of year we see spending online on these items increase about 50%.”

“Our experience shows us that a few days after these sales we start to see huge volumes of parcels coming through our network. We’re expecting a record-breaking week of parcel delivery following these sales and we’re bringing on extra flights, trucks, vans and people to help us get New Zealanders’ parcels under the tree in time for Christmas Day,” says Chris.

“The parcel delivery side of our business is growing at a record-breaking rate year on year. Last year, over the Christmas shopping period of November and December, we delivered 14.5 million parcels – that’s almost three parcels a second – and all the signs indicate we are going to break that record again this year.”

With 35% of Kiwis saying they were looking to purchase something on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and 47% of those intending to shop online, Chris says “New Zealand businesses are factoring these ‘shopping holidays’ into their annual marketing plans and given even more weighting than Boxing Day.”

Chris says this trend toward local online buying could continue. From 1 December 2019, all overseas online shopping will be imposed with the same GST rate that applies to local business. “It will be interesting to see if this will impact how much Kiwis spend online domestically vs internationally in that final lead up to Christmas,” says Chris.

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