New Zealand Ecommerce Industry Report

Traffic trends for New Zealand e-commerce stores have seen significant fluctuations over the years. In early 2024, average traffic steadily increased from 5660 in January to a peak of 9696 in October. However, there was a sharper decline reaching 6767 by December 2024. The beginning of 2025 witnessed traffic levels drop further, maintaining volatility throughout the year, before plummeting to 2926 by January 2026.

The spike in September and October 2024 marked a +25.51% increase from August, standing out as a high point in this period. This surge could potentially be attributed to key sales events or marketing strategies during this timeframe. However, subsequent months did not maintain this momentum, showcasing a continual decrease through the end of 2025.

The 2024 SEO traffic data for New Zealand e-commerce stores reveals substantial fluctuations. Notably, September 2024 marked a peak with an average SEO traffic of 9461.43, while by December 2024, the traffic had dropped to 6572.68. The decline continued into the next year, with January 2026 recording an average SEO traffic of just 2751.98.

In 2025, there was a +17.8% growth in organic search traffic, indicating an uptrend in efforts to optimize e-commerce stores for SEO. Additionally, the organic SERPs growth reached +17.6% in the same year. However, despite these gains, the overall SEO traffic trends demonstrate the challenge of maintaining consistent growth.

The majority of New Zealand e-commerce stores experienced modest SEO traffic, with 1032 stores recording less than 50k visitors per month. On the higher end, 16 stores managed SEO traffic between 100k and 250k, while only 8 stores exceeded 250k visitors monthly. This data highlights varying success levels in leveraging SEO among e-commerce players in New Zealand.

In 2025, New Zealand e-commerce stores experienced significant fluctuations in paid search spending, with a notable surge in March reaching NZD 1495.89 before stabilizing around NZD 348.73 by June. However, the trend did not maintain upward momentum, with a substantial decline over the latter half of the year, concluding 2025 with an average spend of NZD 158.10 in December. By the beginning of 2026, the spend further decreased to NZD 101.86, reflecting a downward trend in paid search spend.

Despite the decline in spending, New Zealand stores displayed a diluted presence in Google Ads, with only 2.99% of stores engaging in ads last month compared to the 5.03% in 2025. This limited engagement and a severe drop of -45.8% in Google paid traffic growth highlight the challenges e-commerce stores face in effectively harnessing paid media channels. Meta Ads usage remained negligible throughout the year, with no stores actively pursuing this channel.

New Zealand's e-commerce stores spent only 1.4% of the global average on paid media, indicating a cautious or strategic approach in budget allocation compared to the global market. Their expenditure on Google Ads was a modest 7.1% of the global average. Despite spending 7.5% of the global average on Meta Ads, engagement remained inactive, signifying room for growth. Implementing refined strategies and capitalizing on effective ad channels remain key for growth in paid media participation.

Instagram organic traffic for New Zealand e-commerce stores exhibited fluctuations, peaking at 717.49 in October 2025. However, by January 2026, traffic had decreased to 492.85, indicating a downward trend from recent highs. Despite the drop in traffic, average weekly Instagram growth remained robust at 125.93 followers in 2025, with stores predominantly seeing traffic under 10k visitors monthly.

TikTok organic traffic also showed a variable pattern throughout 2025, reaching a high of 2143.89 in July but subsequently declining to 317.03 by January 2026. The decrease in average posts per week for both Instagram (-0.14) and TikTok (-0.84) suggests less frequent content uploads, which might impact engagement rates and traffic further. This trend could require e-commerce stores to reassess their content strategies to maintain and potentially grow engagement in 2026.

The website performance of New Zealand e-commerce stores continues to make gradual improvements. The latest Google Lighthouse Performance Score for the current month is 0.569177, showing a slight increase compared to 0.539746 in the previous month (+2.73%). This slow yet positive trend indicates ongoing optimization efforts among these online stores.

In terms of SEO, New Zealand e-commerce stores maintain stability, with the current month’s SEO score at 0.919375, closely aligned with the previous month's 0.919029. The consistent SEO score suggests that stores are maintaining strong search engine optimization. Accessibility scores also remain stable with a slight increase, moving from 0.858993 to 0.860125 this month (+0.13%).

SKU distribution in New Zealand e-commerce stores reveals that a significant number operate with a narrow range of products. The largest segment, with 749 stores, offers between 0 and 250 SKUs, while only 54 stores offer 2501 or more SKUs. This data highlights a predominance of specialized stores with fewer products, emphasizing a focused approach to inventory management.