Black Friday overview: One consumer spent more than R400 000

Black Friday on 29 November delivered a day of exciting deals and shopping activity, performing well above a typical shopping day and marginally higher than the levels in 2023.

BankservAfrica tracked Black Friday sales over the full 24-hour period and analysed transaction volumes against the preceding day, representing a typical shopping day as well as Black Friday 2023 for a year-on-year comparison.

BankservAfrica, an automated clearing house for card, cash and account-based transactions, said in a statement that its 3D-Secure online card authentication service showed the overall volumes were 27% more than the previous day and 6% higher compared to Black Friday 2023. 

Midnight deal hunting started slow at midnight on Thursday but built up in the morning, with shoppers kicking off their Black Friday deal hunting at midnight with volumes up by 75% compared to the same time on Thursday but 11% down from Black Friday 2023.

According to BankservAfrica activity then ramped up from 06:00 and by 10:00 volumes were 79% higher than the same time on Thursday. Online activity peaked between 09:00 and 10:00.

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Consumers hit the shops all day long

The online shopping frenzy continued throughout the day with merchants leveraging enticing deals to keep customers interested—and shopping, BankservAfrica says.

“Throughout the day, online shopping momentum held high. By late afternoon, at 17:00, 3D Secure CNP volumes were still holding strong with a 78% increase on Thursday and a steady year-on-year growth of 4%, with a slight edge over 2023 levels.

“The rush to get the last-minute Black Friday deals was evident in our tracking. Just before the clock struck midnight, at 23:00, our volumes were 75% up compared to Thursday but 8% down compared to Black Friday 2023.”

ALSO READ: Black Friday’s big spenders so far: R340 000 on one transaction

One consumer transferred R424 000 in one transaction on Ozow

The Ozow dashboard for Black Friday showed that the single highest transaction for the day was R424 000, while the average transaction value was R432. The highest daily amount spent by a consumer was R159 000 and the most transactions by a single customer were 29.

The top 3 customers by amount spent were a consumer who spent R854 800 in 20 transactions, followed by someone else who spent R575 700 in 30 transactions and then R424 400 in one transaction. The top 3 by number of transactions were a consumer who concluded 197 transactions on Black Friday, followed by someone who concluded 108 transactions and another consumer who concluded 104 transactions.

ALSO READ: ‘A minimum of 40% would work for me’ – What Black Friday needs to get its groove back

One consumer spent R400 200 on a Discovery card

According to Discovery Bank’s Black Friday SpendTrend dashboard, the average local in-store card transaction value is R513, and the average online card transaction value is R935. The largest single card transaction was R400 200.

The top in-store retail merchants by total card spend value were Woolworths, Checkers, Pick n Pay, Dis-Chem, Spar, Clicks, Makro, Hirsch’s, iStore, and Tops. The top 10 in-store merchants by number of total card purchases were Woolworths, Spar, Pick n Pay, Checkers, Dis-Chem, Clicks, Tops, Liquor Shop, Mr Price, and OK Foods.

The top 10 online retail merchants by total card spend value were Takealot, Checkers Sixty60, Amazon, OneDayOnly, Makro, Woolworths Dash, Superbalist, Bash, Temu, and Shein. Top 10 online retail merchants by number of total card purchases were Checkers Sixty60, Takealot, Temu, Woolworths Dash, Amazon, OneDayOnly, Superbalist, Bash, and Pick n Pay asap! and Shein.

The Black Friday dashboard shows that people spent their money on food and drink (25%), recreation (13%), home (11%), transport and travel (11%), and health and personal care (9%).