Boxing Day shopping bonanza
Many shoppers will be going online to check out Boxing Day deals — after plenty of stores jumped the gun to launch their sales early. Boxing Day came early on websites including Glassons, The Warehouse and Harvey Norman.
Noel Leeming and Barkers were advertising “early access” online to sales yesterday before they hit stores today, while PB Tech launched its deals online at 6pm on Christmas Eve.
There were decent savings on many electronic goods, including televisions, laptops and phones as well as the increasingly popular e-scooters.
PB Tech had $30 off its Xiaomi foldable e-scooter while non-electric scooters were also discounted — Bike Barn had 20 per cent off much of its range for adults and children.
Price and product comparison site PriceSpy predicted almost a fifth (18 per cent) of products would be cheaper the day after Christmas.
Consumers would get an average saving of 13 per cent per item.
“Despite the popularity of Black Friday increasing by 20 per cent this year, our figures indicate Boxing Day appears to be more prevalent amongst price-savvy Kiwis,” said Lisa Matinvesi-Bassett, New Zealand country manager for PriceSpy.
“If shopping is to follow a similar pattern to that of last year, the percentage of consumers searching for products on Boxing Day was at an alltime high, increasing 321 per cent compared to the Tuesday before.”
Kiwis spent $69.7 million at nonfood retail shops on Black Friday this year, surpassing the $68m spent on Boxing Day last year, according to figures from Paymark.
But both days trailed that of Christmas Eve last year when sales surpassed $82m.
Paymark also added that Boxing Day was likely to surpass Black Friday this year.
But Matinvesi-Bassett said the overall percentage of products discounted seemed to be bigger on Black Friday, with 23 per cent of products being discounted compared with 18 per cent on Boxing Day 2017. However there was one item that seemed to be a really good deal.
“For those looking to buy a new television, our research indicates Boxing Day is the best time of year.”