Black Friday month proves to have been a success this year

Black Friday month has proven to have been a success this year, with 934 transactions made per minute on Black Friday and 700 transactions per minute on Cyber Monday.
According to the payments operator, PayInc, this performance demonstrates high activity during this period.

Vouch.co.za says payments in November increased by 15% year-on-year compared to the previous year. Vouch.co.za is an insurance company that employs a network of independent insurance advisors.

Since Black Friday was introduced into the country, many look forward to the day each year. This year, consumers flooded both online and in-store sales despite the challenging economic conditions.

With the global high cost of living, shoppers stocked up on necessities amongst other things. According to Vouch.co.za, Black Friday surpassed expectations considering that conusumers continue to feel the financial pinch.

“This year we saw an increase come through from a Black Friday perspective. I don’t think many of us were expecting that we would see additional spending at this time of the year, especially considering what we’re seeing economically. But there was a 15% increase in terms of the value of spend from a year-on-year perspective,” explains Reeona Chetty, the Head of advice at Vouch.co.za.

Massmart says while online sales are on a rise, it recently seen more footprint in stores this year. It says consumers go online to look for and compare deals but go to the store to make a purchase.

“In-store purchases, as you’ve said, still account for the lion’s share of transactions. And this is, we’re seeing this particularly when customers want to inspect the items, compare options in store, or they want to take their products home immediately. So in terms of the omni-channel behaviour, we are seeing that more customers are moving fluidly between channels. So browsing online, checking if there’s stock available, and then going in store to purchase. So it works hand in hand as a symbiotic relationship,” says Langa Khanya, the marketing executive at Massmart.

Absa says it saw a number of big ticket items, especially for luxury hotels and holiday stays, coming through this year.

Andrew Wilmot, executive for payments acceptance at ABSA Business Banking elaborates, “We did see a number of big ticket items this season, more than a handful over the million rand market single items. Interestingly, a lot of these big tickets were in the leisure and travel environment, so we did see a particular transaction for nearing the one half million rand mark for the luxury hotel and holiday stay. We did see a similar transaction in the car rental sector. But then again, we saw a transaction in a national brand retailer for just around the million rand mark. So it does appear that consumers, whilst on the whole are conservative and very deliberate around value, there are those that are willing to invest in experiences and have spent the money.”

Online store, TakeALot, also sawthe  highest number of visits, orders, and units processed in a single day in its entire history, with the highest value of a single basket exceeding R114 000 on Black Friday.