merry xmas
More than 50 million orders have been placed across 4,000 plus retailers, including Kmart, Myer, Big W, Baby Bunting, and R.M.Williams. Pixabay

Aussies hoping to get their Christmas presents delivered on time this year are being urged to allow for extra time, as some suburbs are facing significant delays.

With 50 million orders placed across more than 4,000 retailers, the holiday season is creating a major bottleneck in deliveries.

According to e-commerce delivery platform Shippit, Truganina in Victoria is the worst affected suburb, with 58.8% of people reporting late deliveries. Kwinana Town Centre in Western Australia follows closely behind at 33.9%, while Broadway in New South Wales ranks third at 31%, News.com reported.

The more remote areas were likely to experience further delays, with Christmas Island facing 91.6% late deliveries, Doomadgee in Queensland at 79.9%, and Badu Island at 71.5%.

The data was based on over 50 million orders placed with more than 4,000 retailers, including Kmart, Myer, Big W, Baby Bunting, and R.M. Williams, covering the 12 months leading up to the end of November 2024.

Shippit co-CEO Rob Hango-Zada explained that delivery issues often stem from bottlenecks in the supply chain, particularly in areas like South Australia and Western Australia, where most commercial volumes were shipped from the eastern seaboard.

"When you start to look at delays, they start to come in all sorts of bottlenecks, and typically where you see bottlenecks is in the sorting process," he said. "Those suburbs that are more consumption led and typically don't have high level of service on an average day, the delivery delays tend to be more pronounced in those areas when there's really high volumes going through a network because of those bottlenecks."

Shippit's latest data also reveals that standard shipping is taking longer than in previous years. On average, it now takes 5.6 days for a delivery, up from two days in 2018, with the cost increasing from AU$9 to AU$10.26.

While delays were expected, Hango-Zada reassured consumers that they were still likely to get their Christmas deliveries on time if they planned ahead.

"The focus of all retailers and carriers I've spoken to is their No.1 job is to keep orders flowing and get orders to customers within a realistic time frame," he said. "I don't think consumers should be panicking yet."