To prepare for the November and Christmas cyber sales, Australia Post has begun adding capacity across its workforce, more airplanes and more postal workers.
According to the company, November-December 2022 is expected to be the largest online shopping period yet. With inflationary pressures hitting household budgets, Australia Post is forecasting a modest 3% year-on-year growth for online purchases in the five weeks leading up to Christmas. Savvy shoppers are expected to prepare well ahead of the festive rush, with about 40% of customers planning to buy early and stash Christmas presents well in advance. In 2022, the shopping period is expected to start with Click Frenzy (November 8-10), followed by Singles Day (November 11), Black Friday (November 25) and Cyber Monday (November 28).
In 2021, Australia Post delivered more than 21,000,000 parcels across the cyber sales event period, with the extended Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales helping to make November 2021 the biggest month in Australian online shopping history. The events caused 4,670,000 Australian households to shop online during the two-week period of November 21 to December 4, 2021. Australia Post has reported that 2021 had a record November that topped November 2020’s numbers by 13.6%, with pet products, tools, gardening equipment, footwear, fashion accessories and beauty the most popular purchases.
Gary Starr, executive general manager of customer and commercial at Australia Post, said, “The November cyber sales month is a perfect opportunity for Australians to plan and make the most of the online deals available so that they can get their presents delivered in time for Christmas. These sales are the peak online shopping events of the year and we’re expecting to see the biggest November ever, with millions of Australians bagging a bargain ahead of Christmas. To ensure we get deliveries to people’s doors as quickly as possible, we’ve been busy recruiting up to 6,000 new team members to help sort and deliver parcels, including weekends and twilight deliveries where they’re most needed. It’s a busy time of year so we’d encourage everyone to get organized and get their parcels in the post ahead of the Christmas rush.”