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Yoco merchants processed R100 million in transactions over Black Friday

The festive shopping season is well underway following Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. While big box stores and national retailers are likely swimming in the successes of the events it was also a good year for small businesses too.

Data from Yoco reveals that merchants in its network surpassed R100 million in transaction processing volume this Black Friday.

More notably, however, there was a 68 percent increase in the number of Yoco merchants participating in Black Friday. As a reminder, Yoco sells point-of-sale payment devices and it also enables online payments for smaller businesses at an affordable rate.

“The fact that small businesses are eager to take part in a retail event that has previously been the preserve of larger stores shows us just how resilient this sector is – especially when you consider our current economic environment and the tumult our merchants have experienced during the past year,” says vice president of commercial at Yoco, Matt Brownwell.

We find this to be a bit of a strange statement to make. While we agree that more small businesses offering digital payment solutions over and above cash is a good thing, we hesitate to attribute this to being eager to participate in a sale event.

In fact, we’d go so far as to say that the pressure Black Friday brings with it pushes smaller businesses away from the shopping event.

In a recent survey, as many as 49 percent of 3 000 Yoco merchants said they wouldn’t participate in Black Friday sales. As many as 39 percent of business owners in that survey said that major discounts just aren’t possible for Black Friday.

These survey results were published before Black Friday, by Yoco in a blog in which it warned that Black Friday sales could leave smaller businesses in a financial rut, facing more competition and a decline in overall sales as buyers wait for discounts at the end of the month.

We bring all of this up because context is important. While many small businesses in Yoco’s network participated in Black Friday, there is clearly still hesitance and rightly so.

All of this is to say that participation in Black Friday and Cyber Monday should be a well planned move and not a decision that is made on a whim.

What we do think is great, however, is the fact that more South African shoppers chose to spend money with small businesses this Black Friday. We really hope to see this trend continue and perhaps in the years to come the idea that a business must offer Black Friday specials will fade away.

Support small businesses folks but don’t pressure them into offering discounts they can’t afford to offer.

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