Online payments provider PayFast has introduced an online dashboard that allows users to track, in real-time, the spending patterns of South African shoppers over this year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
PayFast is a payment gateway that enables online payments for over 40 000 active merchants – including Takealot, Superbalist, Dinnerbox, Readers Warehouse, Rich Mnisi and Tafelberg Furnishers.
Some of the metrics the portal tracks are the highest basket value, mobile versus desktop purchases, top payment methods, and transaction stats per province.
Over the past several weeks, e-tailers have been gearing up for a boost in online purchases on what is considered to be the biggest shopping day of the year.
New research by Payflex shows customers are planning to spend more online this festive season than last year, with online spend likely to triple over last year.
According to PayFast’s live tracker, the largest single basket value spent so far today by one online shopper across its merchant ecosystem (at the time of publication) was R284 625 – spent between 4am and 5am.
This was followed by R112 592, spent between 3am and 4am, with the third largest single basket sale being R107 880, made during the same hour.
According to the tracker, the average basket value is R1 419, and the Northern Cape, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal have the highest number of online shoppers.
These trends are expected to change significantly during the course of the day, as more South Africans take to online channels.
According to PayFast’s data, last year, the largest transaction value for the entire Black Friday was R169 855. The average basket size was R1 208, compared to R1 243 in 2020.
Local retailers Massmart, OneDayOnly and Pick n Pay told ITWeb they are expecting bumper online sales over Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
E-tailer OneDayOnly says: “We are aiming for 17.5% growth in sales this year from November 2021. In terms of infrastructure preparedness, we load-test the potential traffic that may visit our site in order to scale our infrastructure ahead of time so that the site can handle higher user volumes.”
“The changes we have made over the past 18 months have unlocked efficiencies that have helped us to consistently meet our online delivery promise, even when demand increases,” says Merlin Otto, VP for pick-up and delivery at Massmart, which owns Makro and Game.
Pick n Pay says it launched its Black Friday online deals on 17 November. Last year, the retail giant reported R800 million in in-store and online sales, and it is expecting this number to increase this year.
“Our IT infrastructure is now completely in the cloud, which means the online systems we have in place will automatically meet the ever-growing online demands and those we experience annually over Black Friday,” notes Andrew Mills, group executive for marketing at Pick n Pay.
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