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Retailers are being urged to put plans in place to deal with a weaker sales outlook over the coming year.
EY's latest Future Consumer Index research indicates more than a third (37 percent) of consumers were expecting to take advantage of post-Christmas sales, with 70 percent holding off on purchases until there was a major sales event, such as Boxing Day sales.
EY customer and growth lead Michael Summers-Gervai said retailers needed to pay closer attention to online channels with almost half (47 percent) of customers planning to mostly shop the sales, or buy online only, compared with 14 percent planning to shop only in-store.
"It's certainly a tough time for retailers and for consumers as well. And what we're really seeing is... Kiwi shoppers are becoming even more kind of bargain savvy and have a real kind of high participation intent when it comes to sales," Summers-Gervai said.
"People are really hanging out for those sale events, especially in the lead up to Christmas and thinking beyond Christmas into Boxing Day and New Year's."
He said retailers should put plans in place for what happened after the peak summer spending season.
"Really think about what the future brings and start putting in place medium-to-long-term strategies that you can take advantage of with your customers as the economic climate begins to ease."
He said the key to longer-term success was about building and maintaining customer relationships.
"We all know it's a lot easier to build a relationship with people that have bought from you before," Summers-Gervai said.
"So really double down on those efforts and think about the signals that you see from the data that you actually naturally capture as an organisation to understand what might fit best for that particular customer, at that particular moment in time ... although it might be tempting for further discounting and cutting into some of your core pricing."