A seamless delivery experience has always been a primary concern for our customers. Your customers are 1.7 times more likely to make a repeat purchase with a retailer if they have a good delivery experience1, something that is top of mind for discerning shoppers when they’re making decisions on where they’ll get the best value for money this festive shopping season.
In this article, we highlight some practical tips designed to help online retailers drive customer satisfaction and repeat purchase. These tips are aimed at helping you drive delivery excellence across the Peak sales season (October – December) and will also be beneficial all year round.
1. Reasons shoppers choose an online store
Were you aware the number one thing online shoppers prioritise are discounts and special offers? In our Optimising Your Delivery survey, 46% of respondents say deals matter more than anything else.2
Unsurprisingly many shoppers seek out value for money to help their dollar go further, including discounted prices, loyalty and bulk discounts, and free shipping.
There are benefits to letting your customers know that you are local. Along with deals, Kiwi online shoppers prefer NZ-based stores – it’s a key reason they shop with a particular retailer.3
Reason being delivery is faster, generally cheaper, customers like supporting the local economy, and there’s more confidence deliveries will arrive on time during the busy Peak season.
2. Creating the right delivery expectations on your website
Don't hide the delivery options behind the shopping cart, promote them prominently on your website as a competitive advantage and one more reason for shoppers to buy from you. This is especially true if you have options like Express – our same day delivery service - that your competitors might not offer.
Be open about estimated delivery timeframes. Build your team’s processing time into these delivery estimates so that the right expectations are set.
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Add an extra day for your team to process orders if you know it will take them more time over the busy period. Update your website accordingly to set expectations.
3. Looking after your frequent online shoppers
Our research looked at frequent shoppers, a group that claimed to be purchasing online 16 times per month - clearly shoppers all retailers would love. Of the top third of shoppers we surveyed, 93% actively look for free delivery when online shopping.4
The research highlighted practical strategies to help you meet the needs of frequent shoppers by investing in retaining and encouraging repeat sales. Free delivery through loyalty programmes or higher spend thresholds, providing faster deliveries, and avoiding split deliveries where possible or clearly communicating when and why orders will arrive separately so customers can make the choice of waiting longer for parcels were just some of the insights.
You can find out more about strategies to meet the needs of frequent online shoppers in the 2025 eCommerce Market Sentiments Report.
4. Optimising your delivery pricing
Did you know 80% of shoppers would likely spend 10% more to get free delivery? This insight was consistent across all cart values and retail sectors.
In a challenging economic environment, tweaking your delivery pricing approach can be an effective tool to drive extra spend. A successful way we have seen online retailers respond to this is to offer discounted shipping, or free shipping over a certain spend. Review your average cart size on a regular basis to see if there’s scope for this value-add offer to encourage shoppers to not only buy from you but to also spend more.
More insights about cart completion rates at various delivery price points can be found here.
5. Giving your customers delivery options
Customers want more delivery options. A quarter of customers recently surveyed5 are not satisfied with the range of delivery options offered in New Zealand stores.
In fact, our research found that when customers need a speedy delivery, they’re willing to pay for it. A same-day or evening delivery option can command a premium especially for urgent or niche products.
Offer delivery options that cater for a variety of delivery needs. From getting it delivered today, to economy delivery which is priced accordingly, right through to the option to click-and-collect.
More delivery options can be the reason a customer chooses you over another retailer. And providing faster options over Peak gives your customers the reassurance, for example, that an important Christmas gift for a relative will arrive on time.
Courier Economy  | Courier  | Express (Express Tonight)  |
2-3 working days* Cost-effectively send tracked parcels within New Zealand. View full details here | Next working day* An overnight service for sending tracked parcels within New Zealand. View full details here | 30 minutes to same day* Urgent same day, door-to-door courier service with live GPS tracking. View full details here |
Delivery Times
*Delivery targets are a guide only. Delivery between some major towns and cities, and to and from rural areas may take longer.
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All items with tracking can now have a photo taken by the delivery driver. The privacy secured photo is captured and displayed online, or on the NZ Post app, to show the parcel was delivered and where it was left.
Find out more about Photo on Delivery on our website: https://www.nzpost.co.nz/business/photo-required
6. Improving cart completion
The hard work you do to attract shoppers to your online store only to see them stop right before completing a transaction is frustrating. A key insight from our survey revealed several reasons why shoppers abandon their shopping carts and some ideas about what you can do about it:6
- Show delivery costs as early as possible before starting the checkout process
- Offer delivery tracking to provide more certainty about their items getting there and when
- Provide free or a small fee for returns
- Accurately reflect stock levels
- Test that discount/promo codes work
- Availability of preferred payment methods
You can read more about the insights on ways to improve cart completion as part of your online shopping proposition here.
7. Choosing the right service when sender bigger items
Make sure you’re using the right service for sending your parcels, whether they’re standard sized, or large, long or bulky requiring special handling and care.
If you need flexibility for sending bigger items that aren’t suitable to send via the everyday courier, then our Oversize by Fliway service is worth checking out.
Fliway (a NZ Post owned company) offers a dedicated home delivery service with expertise in handling oversize items. This fit-for-purpose solution helps to avoid incurring an Oversize Surcharge when non-compliant larger items are incorrectly labelled and sent through the NZ Post delivery network.
Find out more about our labelling standards here and our Oversize by Fliway service here
8. Win your customers over with visibility
Our research shows 57% would likely abandon their shopping cart if tracking was not offered. This highlighted that reassurance is important, especially for those who aren’t regular online shoppers or who haven’t purchased from you before7. Our experience is that notifications improved first-time delivery rates by up to 50% and drive higher receiver satisfaction.8
Digital tools make tracking easy, helping customers keep track of their parcels’ progress from collection to delivery.
Parcel Notifications  | Our Courier service is even better with parcel notifications via email and SMS, giving your customers peace of mind throughout a parcels journey. With our Express service, your customers can track their journey with live GPS tracking and receive instant pickup and delivery notifications via email or SMS. |
NZ Post app  | With tracking in the palm of their hands, wherever your customers are, they’ll know where their parcel is too. The mobile app is the perfect place to manage and track their parcels. With more than half a million downloads, the NZ Post app is widely used, with nearly 79% of people using it more than twice to track a parcel on its journey.9 |
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Your customers can provide us with delivery instructions, such as a safe place for us to leave or collect their parcels. These convenient delivery and redelivery options mean customers can make sure their parcels turn up where they need to. Find out more.
9. Making returns easy
Our data also shows that 78% of online shoppers are more likely to trust an online store if they offer easy returns.10
Give shoppers confidence that they can return something, if it's not right, by displaying your return policy in a way that's easily found. Making returns simple reduces the barriers to purchase, builds trust and can lead to more satisfied customers.
Include a tracked returns label with your parcels, making it easier for shoppers to return an item if it’s not suitable.
Read more about returns here.
10. Using the right branding
NZ Post is the most trusted delivery provider in New Zealand11 and we know this because we regularly track your customers perception of our brand and measure their satisfaction with our service. Using the right NZ Post branding means consistency for your customer expectations and benefits your brand.
Shoppers like to know at the checkout who is delivering their parcel, so telling them you use NZ Post can mean that:
- They feel confident that their item will be delivered when they expect it.12
- When the NZ Post van arrives in their driveway, they already recognise the delivery of your parcel during this busy shopping period.
Therefore, it is important to ensure our branding is up to date. Make sure you use our most current logo on your website and packaging. You can also ensure the delivery service matches our description: Courier, Express and Express Tonight.
Check out our resource hub for a guide to branding.
BONUS TIP: GET THE ADDRESS & INSTRUCTIONS RIGHT
Visit our API’s Resource Centre to plug into the power of API’s. Use NZ Post's Parcel Address API or Shopify plugin (NZ Post Address Search) to avoid misspelled addresses or incorrect postcodes that require manual intervention into an automated parcel sorting process.
We have a range of resources to help you with sending including addressing, labelling and packaging guidelines.
1. Can delivery experience give our customers a competitive advantage, TRA, November 2023
2. eCommerce Market Sentiments Report 2025.
3. eCommerce Market Sentiments Report 2025.
4. eCommerce Market Sentiments Report 2025.
5. Consumer Receiver Monitor, May 2024
6. eCommerce Market Sentiments Report 2025.
7. eCommerce Market Sentiments Report 2025.
8. Consumer Receiver Monitor, May 2024
9. Consumer Receiving Experience, NZ Post 2024
10. Consumer Receiving Experience, NZ Post 2024
11. Receiver Monitor, NZ Post 2024
12. Brand Tracker 2024
