There was a time when people were nervous about shopping online. What if a hacker gained access to your credit card? What if a scammer found your email address and used it to dupe you into a dodgy investment? What if the company you purchased from spammed you with a truckload of unwanted emails?
Times have changed. Every month that goes by, New Zealanders are spending more on online shopping than they did the month before, and it doesn’t look like slowing. For those of us who are business owners, the challenge is to get on board or risk being left behind.
Here are a few of the latest trends in online shopping in New Zealand.
Online shopping is increasing
In 2018, of all money spent through the New Zealand retail sector, 9% was spent online. That may not seem much now, but it’s increasing monthly.
In 2018:
- Online sales in homeware and electronic products grew 20%
- Variety goods sales rose by 10%.
- Entertainment, books and stationery purchases rose by 9%.
- Food and groceries sales rose by 18% to $736 million.
Even at 9%, the figures are staggering.
In 2018, even with just 9% of shopping being online, 1.8 million New Zealanders purchased online. On average they spent over $2000 each—that’s 3.6 billion dollars of sales.
Meanwhile, NZ Post delivered over seven million parcels every month!
Online shoppers are beginning to consciously choose New Zealand made.
In 2018, overall online spend for clothing and footwear alone rose 28%. But the spend on these items with local retailers jumped by an amazing 45%.
For many years, it was thought that the bulk of online shopping was with offshore companies. This is slowly changing. More and more online shoppers are consciously seeking out and buying from New Zealand online stores.
It’s expected that this trend will continue and perhaps even accelerate as more New Zealand businesses develop an online presence.
Consumers are demanding immediacy
Demand for faster deliveries increasing. Consumers, especially millennials, don’t want to wait too long for the goods they purchase. This is another reason why so many are beginning to favour local retailers—local goods do not have to travel from overseas.
The demand for “immediate” delivery does, however, put pressure on retailers to offer overnight or even same day delivery, and to have robust and efficient ordering systems.
There is still huge potential for growth – New Zealand are no longer fearful
New Zealand consumers seem to have got the hang of online purchasing and use a range of payment options, from credit card to debit cart to PayPal accounts. It’s obvious, those days of nervousness about online purchasing are over for most New Zealanders and the potential for online sales to continue to grow is huge.
More businesses are jumping onboard
With this online sales growth as a background, an increasing number of retail businesses are being proactive about creating an online presence. Some are utilising Trade Me or Facebook Marketplace, but the truly successful online marketers are creating their own e-commerce sites—that is a website that is designed to market and sell goods.
Maybe it’s time your business added online sales to its website. Click here to speak to Rich&Co about the difference it could make to your sales.