Bumper season for mail

Parcel record smashed

THE bumper Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales have resulted in the biggest-ever shopping deliveries in the nation’s history.

New figures from Australia Post show parcel deliveries over the two bumper shopping days soared by 29 per cent this year compared with the same sales period in 2018.

More than 2.1 million parcels were delivered to Australian addresses on Friday alone — a result of many retailers starting their Black Friday sales earlier that week.

The Black Friday deliveries were up by 18 per cent year on year.

This was followed by another 2.56 million parcels delivered to Australian addresses on Cyber Monday — up 12 per cent on last year.

And 300,000 parcels were delivered across the weekend.

Australia Post’s executive general manger of community and consumer, Nicole Sheffield, said it was “prepared” for the bumper shopping extravaganza, which lived up to its expectations of being a roaring success.

“We opened a new delivery centre in Redbank in Queensland, which is the biggest delivery centre in the southern hemisphere,” she said. “We have people working over peak and we have 190 post offices open extra hours.”

Many retailers were offering generous discounts — in many cases 20-30 per cent off recommended retail prices — helping consumers fill their Christmas stockings at a discounted price.

Australian Retailers’ Association executive director Russell Zimmerman said the Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping events this year were the biggest so far in Australia for this period, which has long been popular overseas, including the US.

“It means shoppers would have brought forward their shopping . . . but it means some margins will have been compressed to retailers,” Mr Zimmerman said.

“Retailers have had to put out bigger discounts earlier than what they would have liked to, but that’s normal and that’s what you have to do when these sales come up.”

But Mr Zimmerman said that, with another three weeks of retail trade to go, not all shoppers would have been organised and bought all their presents.

More discounting by retailers is expected intermittently in the coming weeks.