SA's Black Friday online sales exceed expectations, point to a maturing market
According to online payment gateway PayFast, 61% of traffic came from mobile devices.
Figures for online sales in South Africa on the much-hyped Black Friday indicate that the annual sales push exceeded expectations.
Electronic payment service provider DPO South Africa says this year's sales trends point to a maturing South African market.
"Black Friday 2019 has seen even bigger growth than expected, with the volume of online transactions growing by 35%, instead of the 30% predicted," says Brendan Williamson of DPO South Africa.
Data further shows that Black Friday promotions started earlier than usual before hitting record shopping levels on the day with 353 transactions per second at the peak.
According to online payment gateway PayFast, 61% of traffic came from mobile devices.
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According to Williamson, PayGate numbers show that the daily transactional volume between Monday and Thursday was 50 percent greater than a normal trading day.
Black Friday trading volumes spiked by 400 percent, compared to an average trading day.
Overall there was a 35 percent year-on-year transactional volume growth for the Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping week.
However, the average transactional value per basket this year was R1406, compared with R1502 in 2018.
“This statistic speaks to the fact that the consumer went into the shopping extravaganza with a plan this year. Overall, we saw a more educated market who knew what they were doing. They picked up on the opportunities ahead of time, did their homework and worked the specials. The early start on the sale offerings also saw shoppers picking up on specials and not gambling on last minute deals that they may otherwise miss in the frenzy of Friday shopping,” Peter Harvey, MD of the DPO Group explains.