How reliable payments fuel success on Black Friday weekend

With consumer spending reaching $74.4 billion, Black Friday remains one of the most significant shopping days of the year. To make the most of it, businesses must plan how they’ll handle the surge in transactions that could make or break their performance. 

Last year, Stitch helped South Africa’s leading brands and businesses deliver uninterrupted payment experiences for their customers over Black Friday weekend. We’ve analysed the data to show what worked and what businesses can do to boost their conversions this year.

Convert larger basket sizes with Apple Pay and Google Pay 

Transactions made via digital wallets like Apple, Google and Samsung Pay were of significantly higher value. Last year, the average transaction value for Apple Pay and Google Pay was R1,023 and R1,216 respectively - four to five times higher than Capitec Pay, at R242, and almost nine times higher than card present payments at R140.

What makes Apple Pay and Google Pay so successful is their speed and simplicity at checkout. Apple Pay offers one-click checkout and prefilled addresses, which makes it easier for customers to complete their payments. 

Security also plays a major role. Black Friday is a peak season for online fraud and scams, so naturally, consumers are more cautious when paying for higher-value items around this time. Digital wallets help customers feel safer by using device authentication and tokenisation to protect their payments. 

With these advantages in mind, enabling Apple Pay and Google Pay at your online checkout could be the simplest way to build trust and increase revenue this Black Friday.

What if you don’t support Apple Pay and Google Pay yet? 

You can still move quickly. Stitch can fast-track custom enterprise integrations thanks to easy-to-leverage SDKs, while e-commerce merchants operating on Shopify or WooCommerce can switch on digital wallets in less than a day with the Stitch Express plug-in.

Convert higher volumes with Capitec Pay

To capture at least 77% of total payment volume, businesses need to enable Pay by bank. Capitec Pay alone processed 51% of the total volume over Black Friday weekend. This comes as no surprise, given that around 85% of South African adults hold a bank account and Capitec has a majority share. 

During peak hours, Capitec Pay consistently outperforms all payment methods, processing 68% of peak transaction volumes. For businesses, supporting Capitec Pay could be the difference between maximising conversions and missing out on sales during the busiest hour of the day.

Ensure peak performance when shoppers show up most 

Black Friday will test your infrastructure, especially between the hours of 18:00 and 19:00. The highest volume of transactions were processed within this hour, likely because most shoppers become active online just after work. 

Of course, businesses need to be fully available throughout the day to maximise conversions and meet customer expectations. These are some notable shopping windows to be prepared for:

Stitch saw 99.9995% uptime 

When customers are at the critical point where they’re ready to pay, it’s crucial that your payments infrastructure holds up and enables them to transact smoothly. During last year’s Black Friday weekend, we didn’t let businesses down when they needed us the most. Our payments infrastructure is always on due to our robust redundancies and reliable failovers.  

99.9995% reliability should be your baseline. 

Contact our team to ensure reliable payments infrastructure throughout Black Friday peaks.

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