11-11-2019

Singles’ Day originated in China as an anti-Valentine’s Day where single people sent each other gifts. In 2009 it was turned into a major online shopping ‘holiday’ by e-commerce giant Alibaba and continues to grow in popularity across the globe.

NZ Post Chief Marketing Officer, Bryan Dobson says, “Singles’ Day is starting to catch on in New Zealand – and while Black Friday and Cyber Monday still dominate the online shopping days in New Zealand, we’re expecting Singles’ Day this year to be bigger than ever as Kiwi consumers and e-tailers jump on the bandwagon.”

NZ Post’s recent The Full Download 2019 report showed that Kiwis are shopping online more often and spending more, with online shopping ‘holidays’ such as Singles’ Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday becoming a major factor in our online shopping habits.

The popularity of Singles’ Day is fantastic news for New Zealand businesses – including NZ Post. “Singles’ Day really kicks off the busy period for NZ Post. Last year we delivered over 14.5 million parcels during November and December. That’s an average of almost three parcels a second.”

“Traditionally the online shopping season started much closer to Christmas, but it is now starting earlier in the year. From October onward, Kiwi shoppers are spending most in the Clothing and Footwear and the Homewares and Electronics categories – with a huge 57% and 48% increase in spending in these areas during this season,” says Bryan.

“NZ Post is expecting another record online shopping season this year and will be upping our capacity to meet the huge number of parcels that are already starting to come through our network – including 185 additional flights, 27 additional trucks, 1,500 additional delivery runs, 200 extra vans and hundreds of extra people to help us get your parcel to you on time”, says Bryan.

Overall 1.8 million New Zealanders shopped online in 2018, spending a total of $4.2 billion. A significant proportion of this spending is on items that require delivery as parcels. NZ Post completes well over half of these deliveries with more than 78 million parcels delivered last year. “Online shopping grew 16% in 2018 – that’s eight times faster than in-store shopping”, says Bryan, “NZ Post will also be investing significantly in the parcel network over the next three years to continue to meet this growth”.

NZ Post is keeping an eye on the spending trends this online shopping season and will be reporting back to New Zealand on whether Kiwis are spending as much as we predict in the 2020 Full Download report.

Source: NZ Post 

 
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