What are the big shopping days for retail business in the led up to Christmas? Below are key dates of major shopping events after Labour Weekend.
Customers are expected to be out shopping and online, looking for bargains and making purchases.
After Labour Weekend sales at the end of October, Singles Day occurs on 11 November. This is a Chinese shopping festival. Excitingly, it offers huge opportunity for Kiwi retailers to reach the vast Chinese market.
Black Friday is an American import that has become a fixture of the Kiwi shopping calendar in recent years. It’s the day after Thanksgiving in the US. Black Friday is now bigger than Boxing Day for New Zealand retailers. Kiwis are increasingly using Black Friday sales to stock up, and kickstart their Christmas shopping. In New Zealand, Cyber Monday has increasingly been merged with Black Friday. This creates one of the biggest shopping festivals of the year.
Ecommerce sites and bricks-and-mortar stores will get busier through December. Christmas Eve (24 December) is still the biggest shopping day of the year. Shoppers rush to get groceries and gifts sorted ahead of Christmas Day, when most shops must close. Boxing Day sales start on 26 December and round out the busiest month of the year for retailers.
The spring and summer season is also a popular time for councils to run events, including Christmas parades. It would pay to check out your council’s calender of events for any upcoming activities to ensure that you make the most of the retail opportunities that come with these.
