NZ Post urges people to 'send now, if you haven't already' as Christmas delivery cut-off dates loom

Wednesday, 8 December 2021

New Zealand Post is urging people to send their packages now in time to get them under the tree, as it experiences its busiest Christmas ever.

“Our message to Kiwis is to send now, if you haven’t already,” NZ Post chief operating officer Brendon Main said.

The deadlines for domestic parcels sent by economy class is December 16, and parcels sent by courier is December 20.

Deadlines for sending Christmas presents overseas in time for Christmas have already passed.

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**

It is the busiest Christmas NZ Post hadever experienced, delivering 2.4 million parcels every week.

Main said the state-owned postal service had brought forward the deadlines for sending Christmas presents domestically.

“We have brought on as much extra capacity as we possibly can and our teams are working flat out to get parcels under the tree in time,” he said.

NZ Post began processing record parcel numbers in August when the country went into lockdown and those volumes had increased in the lead-up to Christmas.

The busiest day so far was Cyber Monday on November 29, when it received more than 535,000 parcels to deliver on that day.

Main said it was expecting parcel volumes to reach those numbers again this week.

“That is why it is so important for people to send their parcels as soon as they can.”

NZ Post had already brought on hundreds of extra staff, and was processing around the clock and had redesigned its Auckland network, he said.

Last year NZ Post delivered 15.3 million parcels during November and December.