Michael Summers-Gervai, customer and growth lead at EY NZ, said as society moved back to living normally after heavy disruption brought about by the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, so too was the way Kiwis shopped - and more are now heading back to physical shops to make a purchase.
Fifty-one per cent of New Zealanders have ordered a product online in the past three months.
At least 1 in 5 people say they intend to shop online and instore in coming months.
"At the end of 2020, during the height of the pandemic, we saw New Zealanders shopping online at its peak, [when] 86 per cent of Kiwis were shopping online, at a time where people were forced to change their channel of consumption and shopping. Since then we started measuring how much more Kiwis expected to shop online moving forward," said Summers-Gervai.
"As of June 2020 it was about 37 per cent more - about a third were going to shop more online and that went down to about 30 per cent and the latest stat has come in at around 17 per cent. It is still growing but I think it has got to quite a high level and now it is easing back a little bit as restrictions open up and Kiwis want to get out a bit more."
Outside of online shopping, Kiwi's spending habits in general seem to have been reined back in recent months - this could likely be the result of the rising cost of living.
Almost 50 per cent of Kiwis surveyed said they would only be spending money on the essentials in the future, while 35 per cent said they were trying new brands in an attempt to cut back on costs.
Fifty-eight per cent of those surveyed said they were now spending less on non-essentials such as fashion and cosmetics and homewares, and of those 39 per cent said they were now shopping less often for non-essentials.
"Conservative spending is naturally slowing e-commerce growth," Summers-Gervai said.
"Given the cost of living pressure that everybody is feeling we are seeing a reduction in shopping around. Fifty per cent of people are only purchasing the essentials and a third of Kiwis are trying new brands to reduce new costs. There is a reduction in non-essential spending."
EY's data as of June, shows 43 per cent of Kiwis intended to shop more at local small businesses, with a quarter changing brands to support the local economy.
One in four Kiwis are also switching from brands to private labels as a cost-saving measure. "This change in consumer behaviour and sentiment is also very much around spend expectations and where people are spending time. Over a third of people expect to spend more time at home and one in five are expecting to visit physical stores less often."
Summers-Gervai said the growth in e-commerce activity was beginning to slow down in line with what other western markets have already been experiencing for several months, but he said the data showed there was still a desire from consumers to shop online.
"People had to shop online before for the past two years - it was a forced activity - now as restrictions ease it has disappeared largely and people can now go out again but it doesn't mean that e-commerce will stop at all growing; that is still a global trend that will continue."
