Kiwis spent more than $2.2 billion on physical goods online during the first quarter of 2022 through nearly 17 million transactions.
That’s 31% up on the first quarter of 2021 and 86% up on the first quarter of 2020, according to the latest NZ Post eCommerce Spotlight report.
Q1 2020 was the first quarter which saw the impact of COVID on shopping numbers with lockdowns driving people online from March 2020.
Going back to Q1 2019, to get a true pre-COVID comparison, this quarter’s online spending numbers are more than double what they were just three years ago.
NZ Post business marketing general manager Chris Wong says COVID-19 has changed the way New Zealanders shop, for good.
“This is the second biggest quarter for online shopping for total spend in New Zealand, second only to the busy Christmas shopping season at the end of last year.
“Omicron has been a big factor in consumer shopping trends this quarter. More Kiwis have been at home, either unwell or isolating, and this is shown in the huge numbers for online shopping.
“It is interesting to see however, that while online shopping for the quarter as a whole was up on the same quarter last year, we did see a decline in shoppers throughout the quarter, as month by month fewer Kiwis shopped online. While in January there were nearly 2.2 million shoppers online, this dropped to 1.98 million in February and then dropped by another 200,000 in March,” Wong says.
The quarter was subject to a number of headwinds like the human resource challenges caused by Omicron, the Russia-Ukraine war, further supply shortages and the rapidly rising cost of living.
“The good news is 77% of spending this quarter was with New Zealand-based businesses.
“Ongoing disruptions to global supply chains means Kiwis are continuing to favour buying local. This is reassuring for our locally owned businesses during a time of economic uncertainty and NZ Post is here to support local businesses to succeed in the eCommerce space,” Wong says.
Meanwhile, NZ Post is also set to open two new parcel processing facilities this year which will double its parcel processing capacity.
Upgrades to the Christchurch Processing Centre and the opening of the brand new Wellington Super Depot later this year mean the company is primed for continued growth in online shopping.
The two new facilities are just the start of a 10-year plan for investment into parcel processing infrastructure and smarter technology.
“We’re really proud of how NZ Post has continued to deliver for Kiwis during the Omicron outbreak.
“We prepared for this latest outbreak by increasing our capacity to deliver by bringing on 10 more people. We also put in place plans to limit the impact of people being away from work, through careful case management and contact tracing.”
“Our people have done an incredible job over the last two years of the pandemic, working hard to deliver essential items and to keep Kiwis connected during uncertain times,” Wong says.
eCommerce Spotlight stats for Q1 2022:
- The top three fastest growing sectors for online spending compared with Q1 2021 were: homewares, appliances & electronics (up 38%), health & beauty (up 37%), and clothing & footwear (up 36%).
- Spending with drug stores & pharmacies, a subset of the health & beauty sector, grew 52%.
- The top three regions with the fastest growth rates were: Marlborough (up 36%), Tasman (up 36%) and the West Coast (up 35%), which are amongst the smallest regions for online spending.
- The age group with the fastest growth rate in online spending was the 75+ group. Online spending by this group in Q1 2022 grew 40% compared with Q1 2021, however their spending represents just 3% of total online spending.
