Black Friday Tracker Provides Sales Data insights

Business Tech Africa will be providing a daily update on Black Friday Sales volumes and values up until next week Tuesday after the Tech Monday Sales

Sales on the first day of “Black Friday Week” started off a bit subdued yesterday (25 Nov), with live stats coming from the Ecentric Black Friday Dashboard.

Ecentric is providing live transactional data for the entire week before Black Friday, delivering a world of real-time payment insights, for the first time.

To provide a context to these numbers, they are not the total market figures but are based on the total transactions as processed by Ecentric, who processes around 20% of all South Africa’s card transactions.

Ecentric is a trusted payments partner to 65% of the JSE listed retailers, serving their in-store, online, mobile and omni-channel payment requirements. 

These figures therefore represent a large segment of totals and provides a pretty accurate mirror for the entire retail market place in South Africa.

Sales Volumes up Significantly

The average sales per hour yesterday, during retail hours, ranged from 140 000 to almost 200 000 per hour and when compared to the similar Monday in 2023, volume was more than double that of 2023, as of 17H00 yesterday

Value of Transactions Almost Half of 2023

The value of transactions processed yesterday however told a different story to the volume, with total value of transactions processed yesterday as at 17H00 sitting at a negative 47% compared to 2023.

There were some large transactions processed with the highest single purchace for the day above R181 000, but the average purchase price of transactions was around R450.

The implications are that so-far there are lots of smaller purchases being made and that the average basket purchased this year seems to be shrinking.

The most common payment method used was that of credit cards, another indicator that the consumers have been pinched for money and are looking at reducing their spend and saving money.

It is however early days or perhaps early hours in the Black Friday Week, and much could still change in overall outlook. Check back in tomorrow on Business Tech Africa, for an update on Black Friday 2024.