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- Data from banks and other payment companies show increased Black Friday sales this year.
- Yoco said sales from merchants who used its devices reached a new record.
- Although companies expected consumers to be thrifty, given subdued economic recovery, banks say consumer spending is recovering better than expected.
Payment provider Yoco says its merchants surpassed R100 million for the first time this past Black Friday. Those were purchases made just on Black Friday alone, but most businesses had been running their specials for a week, or even as early as the beginning of November.
With rain in most parts of the country putting a damper on buyers' enthusiasm, and none of the long midnight queues or broken store doors that have marked past Black Fridays, it would seem that South Africans no longer subscribe to the US craze.
"[It's] not nearly as big as it was in previous years. You didn't see all those images of people rushing into the big retailers. It seemed quite calm," said Yoco's Matt Brownell.
But the value and volumes of transactions processed by the payment devices of its over 200 000 clients throughout the country, as well as the online stores that use its payment gateway, astounded the company.
For the first time in Yoco's history, it hit R100 million in transactions in a single day. This was 65% higher than the transactions merchants processed on Black Friday last year. In addition, the number of consumers rose by 68% from the past year.
Although rain kept most people in their homes, Yoco, which built payment gateways for online stores during the hard lockdown in 2020, said it was clear that many more people were now comfortable shopping online.
"Interestingly, people are shifting their behaviour towards online," said Brownell.
In fact, this behavioural shift could explain why payment providers are seeing a big jump in Black Friday expenditure. Before Covid-19, many people predominantly used cash to pay.
While the shift towards using digital payments and swiping bank cards would likely not affect big retailers' Black Friday numbers that much, it does significantly move a dial for smaller businesses. Yoco can now track a bigger share of their Black Friday sales and in real time.
What banks' data show
But it's not only Yoco's data that show Black Friday cheer remains alive. BankservAfrica said on Black Friday 2021, there were sales of R3.3 billion that went through point-of-sale devices countrywide - a 17% growth from R2.9 billion in 2020. Sales volumes increased by 10% to 5.2 million.
Standard Bank said its total card transactions for Black Friday 2021 increased by 17% compared to the same period last year. The average value of transactions rose by 13%. FNB said its cardholders spent more than R2.5 billion on Black Friday, an increase of 15% from 2020.
Categories such as entertainment saw an 18% year-on-year increase. Grocery spending increased by a further 19% year-on-year. Digital and tech increased by 17% year-on-year, and clothing increased by 10% year-on-year. Travel and holiday spending on Black Friday saw a 29% year-on-year increase, but is still down 36% compared to the same period before the pandemic.
FNB Retail CEO Raj Makanjee reckons these spending patterns are an indication of income recovery among consumers. The bank said its data show that consumer spending was recovering better than expected in most spending categories.
Nedbank's executive for Card and Payments Acceptance, Mpho Sadiki, said going into Black Friday, there was a sense that with subdued economic growth and stretched household incomes, consumers would not have the money to spend on luxury items that typically make up Black Friday sales.
On the other hand, some expected that South Africans were ready to shop up a storm after almost two years of limited consumption. She said those who predicted increased shopper activity were on the money, based on early turnover data gathered from merchants using Nedbank's cards and e-commerce networks.
That data showed that Black Friday weekend turnover increased by 25% this year compared to 2020. Sales turnover of the actual day, Friday, was up 17%.
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