Online shops and banks are still counting the rands they made during Black Friday and the surrounding days this year. At Takealot, a customer filled up a basket for a cool R114 000, the single highest spend on Black Friday, while a Discovery Bank customer spent a whopping R500 000 in one transaction for travel. According to Takealot, the online shopping platform had a record-breaking month again this November as it ran Black Friday deals throughout the entire month from 3 November to 1 December.
Black Friday was once again its highest contributing single day in terms of gross merchandise value, while it achieved its highest ever number of visits, orders and units processed in a single day in Takealot’s entire history. A spokesperson says Takealot sold enough Coca-Cola to give every fan at a sold-out FNB Stadium a cold drink… twice. And if you stacked all the air fryers it sold, it would reach higher than 70 Table Mountains.
Consumers also effectively bought the equivalent of 250 full cinemas’ worth of screens — enough to host an entire country’s movie night. The top products by orders on Black Friday 2024 were Finish dishwashing tablets, Klipdrift brandy, Baby Soft toilet paper, Coca-Cola bottles, TRESemmé hair treatment and Russell Hobbs microwave ovens. This year, the top 10 were Baby Soft toilet paper, Russell Hobbs air fryer, Eucerin sunscreen, cases of Coca-Cola, Maybelline primer and Sunlight dishwashing liquid.
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The top products by gross merchandise value on Black Friday last year were PlayStation 5, Samsung 70″ TV, Hisense 65″ TV, Hisense 50″ TV, Apple iPhone 13 and Red Bull energy drinks. This year, the top 10 included Samsung 65″ TV, PlayStation 5, Samsung 75″ TV, Samsung 55″ TV, Apple iPad, HUAWEI tablet and ASUS laptop. Hylton Kallner, Discovery Bank CEO Discovery Bank, says a new SpendTrend the bank identified was that customers are moving to tap-to-pay and virtual cards.
Nearly two-thirds of in-store card transactions are now paid for with tap-to-pay with smart devices, and a third of online spend is using virtual cards. “Black Friday is a powerful barometer of consumer trends and economic health. This year we saw strong growth in card spend and transaction volumes alongside clear signs of disciplined, value-conscious shopping as clients take advantage of lower interest rates and targeted deals to stretch their budgets further.” Discovery Bank’s data shows a clear, though cautious, recovery in consumer activity with higher overall spend, more transactions and smaller average baskets. Kallner says this is consistent with broader industry comment, which highlights resilient Black Friday demand supported byrecent rate cutsandmore optimistic, although still value-focused, shoppers.
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