Boxing Day sales in New Zealand: the best deals I've found so far

Like Christmas on the 25th of December, Boxing Day always lands on December 26. However, the start date of Boxing Day sales aren't quite as consistent. In the last few years, retailers have launched their Boxing Day deals a few days before Christmas – and then simply ran them through to New Years Eve. We've now seen some early Boxing Day deals go live as of Monday December 22.

This question is a weird one to answer when it comes to Boxing Day. There's no real 'early Boxing Day sales'. We expect things to start around December 20, but the majority of deals will be titled as Christmas discounts.

And, even if you're working off Boxing Day sales starting on December 26, how long they last is still retailer-specific. We've seen some stores run them for just 24 hours before beginning New Years sales, while others will run Boxing Day discounts for a week, morphing into early January sales from December 27.

Do note that the deals available in early January will likely differ from the true Boxing Day sales we see. We expect December 26 to offer the best prices.

The exact origin of Boxing Day is disputed, but it’s generally accepted to have begun from a British tradition of charitable giving on the day after Christmas, December 26. The Oxford English Dictionary dates its first usage to the mid 1700s, and around this time, Boxing Day was marked by the gifting of Christmas boxes to service people from their wealthy employers.

These days, Boxing Day is a very different affair that’s closely associated with sport, shopping and eating leftovers from Christmas lunch. In New Zealand and some Commonwealth countries, Boxing Day sales are the last major shopping event of the year, as retailers look to shift older stock to make way for newer models. In recent years however, the American shopping import of Black Friday sales has become bigger than Boxing Day.

Originating in the United Kingdom, Boxing Day is a holiday that is specific to countries that are members of the Commonwealth. However, not every country celebrates the same. For example, in Australia, Boxing Day is a public holiday – as it is in New Zealand – in all states except South Australia, where Proclamation Day is celebrated on the first weekday after Christmas Day or the Christmas Day holiday instead.

The countries that celebrate Boxing Day are as follows:

Australia, Belize, Bermuda, Canada, Denmark, Fiji, Germany, Greenland, Hong Kong Hungary, Ireland, Jamaica, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland, Singapore South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda and United Kingdom.

Yes! While it's unfortunate that it lands after Christmas – and, thus, after you're likely to be doing the majority of your shopping – Boxing Day is perhaps the number two best time to shop behind with Black Friday.

While we can't predict how good this years Boxing Day offering will be, we were very impressed with the Black Friday deals we saw, and expect Boxing Day to be similar, if not better.

If it wasn't cheaper to shop on Boxing Day, then it wouldn't make a very good sales day, would it? Jokes aside, along with Black Friday, the days leading up until Christmas and EOFY sales, Boxing Day is one of the best times to snag big discounts on big-ticket items like TVs, coffee machines, phones and laptops.

Black Friday is certainly the bigger sales event worldwide, as it's lead by the USA, but up until recent times Boxing Day has been the #1 sales event in Australia and New Zealand. 2023 might have been the turning point for that battle, though.

Obviously, the facts and figures are going to be hard to pinpoint, if they're available at all. However, Retail Doctor CEO Brian Walker said before 2023's Black Friday sale that the upcoming sale would be bigger than Boxing Day, as many use it as the starting-off point for their Christmas shopping. Whether one is actually bigger than the other, we don't know. However, if you count the Christmas deals that will be available for weeks leading up to the big day, then even with Black Friday sales lasting 14 days this year, Boxing Day has it beat.

Like Black Friday, Boxing Day is a great time to get those big-ticket items and tech that are usually too expensive to buy at full price. An added benefit is that, usually, big tech products like that aren't going to be bought for Christmas. Not many people are getting a 75-inch OLED from Santa. So that means you get to enjoy the sales on things like TVs, game consoles, tablets, laptops and monitors, without hampering your Christmas shopping – or giving someone a Christmas gift on Boxing Day.