Send Christmas Gifts to New Zealand From Overseas

If you’re living overseas and want to send a Christmas gift to family or friends in New Zealand, you don’t need to package something yourself and send it halfway around the world.

One of the easiest options is to buy directly from a New Zealand gift company and have your present delivered locally.

In fact, around half of the orders we receive at About Giving are placed from overseas. It’s a simple way for people living in Australia, the UK, USA and elsewhere to send something thoughtful to someone back home — without the cost, delays and complications of international shipping.

Here’s how to make it easy, personal and much less stressful this Christmas.

Quick Answer: What’s the Easiest Way to Send a Christmas Gift to New Zealand From Overseas?

Buy your gift from a New Zealand-based company and have it delivered directly to your recipient.

Your gift only needs to travel within NZ, making delivery generally faster, safer and cheaper than packaging and sending a parcel internationally.

You can order online from overseas, choose your preferred delivery date, add a personal card or even a video message, and let the NZ retailer take care of the rest.

Is It Better to Buy a Christmas Gift in NZ Rather Than Send One From Overseas?

In most cases, yes.

Sending your own parcel internationally can mean expensive freight, long transit times and the possibility of customs delays.

At Christmas, when international postal and courier networks are already under pressure, those uncertainties become even greater.

Buying within New Zealand removes most of that hassle.

The gift is already here. It’s packed here. It’s collected by a local courier and travels within the NZ courier network to your recipient.

There’s also no international customs process or import charge for your recipient to deal with because you’re purchasing a gift that’s already in New Zealand.

For something as time-sensitive as Christmas, keeping the journey as short as possible makes a lot of sense.

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If the person you’re buying for lives in New Zealand, start by shopping in New Zealand. You’ll avoid international shipping and your gift has a much shorter journey to its final destination.

Can I Order a New Zealand Christmas Gift From Another Country?

Absolutely. Overseas customers order gifts from About Giving every day.

Around half of our overall orders are placed by people outside New Zealand, so sending gifts on behalf of overseas customers isn’t unusual for us — it’s a major part of what we do.

You can browse and order through our website wherever you are.

Our website also has a currency converter in the top-right corner, so you can browse prices in your preferred currency.

At checkout, all orders are processed in New Zealand dollars (NZD), so keep in mind that the final amount charged to your card will be processed in NZD and your bank or card provider may apply its own conversion rate or fees.

What Christmas Gifts Can I Send to New Zealand?

Pretty much anything you would send if you were here yourself.

Being overseas doesn’t limit you to a special international range.

You can send Christmas hampers, gourmet food gifts, alcohol-free gifts, wine and Champagne hampers, flowers, living trees, plants, pampering gifts and more.

You can also use Create Your Own to build a gift around the person you’re buying for.

If you’re buying for a whole household, a sharing hamper with a mixture of sweet and savoury food is an easy option.

If you don’t know someone’s tastes particularly well, we’d generally choose a balanced alcohol-free hamper rather than guessing what they drink.

And if you know exactly what they love, that’s when Create Your Own really comes into its own.

Can I Send a Christmas Gift That Feels Like New Zealand?

Yes — and that’s another advantage of shopping locally.

If you’re sending something home from overseas, choosing New Zealand products can make the gift feel connected to where your recipient actually is.

At About Giving, we work with New Zealand producers and artisans across our range, alongside selected international brands.

For Christmas in particular, remember that you’re sending a gift into a Kiwi summer, not a Northern Hemisphere winter.

Our Kiwi Christmas hamper, for example, is built around platter-style food and easy sharing — the sort of things that make sense for a New Zealand Christmas spent entertaining, eating and enjoying summer.

You don’t need to send a taste of London to Auckland.

Sometimes it’s nicer to send a taste of home.

Can I Choose When My Christmas Gift Is Delivered?

Yes. You can select your preferred delivery date when ordering.

We’ll then work backwards using courier guidance and dispatch your gift with the appropriate lead time for its destination.

So if you’re sitting in London, Sydney or New York, you don’t need to calculate exactly when a parcel needs to leave Auckland to reach Christchurch.

That’s our job.

There is one important distinction:

Your selected date is a preferred delivery date, not a guaranteed delivery date.

Once a parcel enters the courier network, there are things outside our control. We do everything we can to time dispatch appropriately, but courier delays can happen — particularly during the Christmas rush.

When Should I Order a Christmas Gift for Someone in NZ?

If arriving before Christmas matters, we’d aim for around mid-December rather than leaving it until the final few days.

You can certainly order earlier and select your preferred delivery date.

That’s actually the less stressful option.

December is incredibly busy for New Zealand courier networks. The closer we get to Christmas Day, the greater the parcel volumes and the higher the chance of delays.

We dispatch every day in the lead-up to Christmas, including Christmas Eve, but ordering early gives everybody more breathing room.

We’ll cover Christmas ordering dates and delivery timing in detail in our dedicated Christmas Delivery Guide, but our general advice is simple:

Get in sooner rather than later.

Can I Order a Christmas Gift on Christmas Eve?

Yes — if you order early enough, we’ll still dispatch it. Just don’t expect it to arrive on Christmas Day.

Our Christmas Eve courier collection is at approximately 1pm, so eligible orders placed that morning can still leave us that day.

The next delivery opportunity will then be after the Christmas and Boxing Day public holidays.

Depending on which days of the week those holidays fall on, the observed public holidays and where in New Zealand the gift is travelling, that may mean arrival somewhere around 27–29 December or later.

So if you’re ordering on Christmas Eve, you’re firmly in better late than never territory.

And frankly, who doesn’t enjoy an unexpected Christmas present turning up a few days later?

If arriving before Christmas Day is important, don’t use Christmas Eve as your ordering strategy.

Can I Send Christmas Gifts Anywhere in New Zealand?

Yes. About Giving delivers nationwide, including rural addresses.

The important thing to remember is that not every New Zealand address has the same transit time.

Rural deliveries generally need additional time, and South Island deliveries take longer from our Auckland base than deliveries within Auckland or much of the North Island.

That becomes particularly important during December.

If your recipient lives rurally, give their gift some extra breathing room rather than working backwards from the fastest possible transit time.

Why Do I Need My Recipient’s New Zealand Phone Number?

Because it can make the difference between a delivery problem being solved quickly and sitting unresolved while everybody waits for an answer from the other side of the world.

A recipient phone number is mandatory at our checkout, and if you’re ordering from overseas, please give us their New Zealand number rather than your own overseas number.

If something goes wrong with delivery, having the recipient’s number means we or the courier can contact them directly.

If we only have your number, we have to contact you.

You might be asleep.

We wait.

You reply.

We then need to pass the information back.

A simple delivery question can suddenly lose another day because of the time difference.

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Always provide the recipient’s NZ mobile number when sending a gift from overseas. It doesn’t make the gift any less of a surprise — it simply gives us a much better chance of resolving any delivery issue quickly.

How Can I Make an Overseas Christmas Gift Feel Personal?

This is where the message matters.

When you can’t physically be there for Christmas, what you say can be just as important as what you send.

You can include a personal message with your About Giving order and we’ll print it onto the gift card that accompanies your present.

But there’s another option that’s particularly special when you’re overseas.

Leave Them a Video Message

You can record a personal video on your phone and send it with your gift.

At checkout, select the Video Message option and upload your recording.

We’ll create a unique QR code for your video and include it with the gift, along with a note letting your recipient know that a special video message has been left just for them.

When the gift arrives, they scan the QR code with their phone and your video plays.

That means Grandma and Grandad in New Zealand don’t just receive a Christmas hamper from the family overseas.

They can actually see and hear you wishing them Merry Christmas.

You could record the kids. Get the whole family into the frame. Show them the ridiculous Christmas jumper you’re wearing. Say the things that don’t quite have the same impact squeezed onto a gift card.

When you’re thousands of kilometres apart, it’s a lovely way of putting you back into the present.

Can I Send Wine or Alcohol to Someone in New Zealand From Overseas?

Yes. Ordering from overseas doesn’t change the process.

You must be 18 or older to purchase alcohol, and the person receiving the alcohol must also be 18 or older.

If you know your recipient enjoys a particular wine, bubbles, beer or spirit, it can make a lovely Christmas gift.

If you’re unsure whether they drink, we’d choose an alcohol-free gift instead.

Can I Send Gifts to Several Different Addresses in New Zealand?

Yes, although each individual online order is assigned to one delivery address and tracking number.

If you’re sending Christmas gifts to Mum in Auckland, your brother in Wellington and friends in Christchurch, simply place separate orders for each address.

That means each gift can be packed, dispatched and tracked individually.

If you’re sending a large number of gifts — perhaps Christmas presents to clients, staff or a large extended family — don’t sit there entering dozens of individual orders unless you particularly enjoy data entry.

Send through the details and we can help organise the orders in bulk.

Can I Track a Christmas Gift From Overseas?

Yes.

Once your gift has been dispatched, tracking lets you follow its progress through the New Zealand courier network even though you’re sitting on the other side of the world.

That’s another reason we strongly recommend providing accurate recipient contact details.

If tracking shows there’s a delivery issue, it’s much easier for us to help when we have everything we need to contact the person actually receiving the parcel.

What If I Don’t Know What Christmas Gift to Choose?

Don’t overcomplicate it.

Think about what you know about the recipient.

If you know they love wine, chocolate or savoury food, use that.

If you’re sending to a family, choose something they can share.

If you know very little about their tastes, an alcohol-free hamper with a good mixture of sweet and savoury products is a safe place to start.

If you want us to do the choosing, browse our ready-made Christmas Gift Boxes & Hampers.

If you know exactly what they’d love, use Create Your Own and build the gift yourself.

Either way, you don’t need to be physically in New Zealand to organise something thoughtful.

Sending a Little Bit of Christmas From a Long Way Away

Living in another country can make Christmas gifting feel more complicated than it needs to be.

It doesn’t have to involve buying presents at home, finding boxes, completing international shipping paperwork, paying expensive postage and then watching tracking updates as your parcel slowly makes its way around the world.

Buy locally in New Zealand.

Choose something your recipient will enjoy. Give us their NZ delivery details and phone number. Select your preferred delivery date. Write them a card — or record a video so they can actually see your face.

Then we’ll take care of getting the gift from us to them.

Around half of the orders we receive already start their journey with someone sitting outside New Zealand.

The gift doesn’t need to travel halfway around the world.

The thought already has.