Whoosh reports Black Friday rush
As SA recovers from the devastating effect of Covid-19, consumers seem to have gone out of their way to take advantage of special deals on Black Friday, according to data from payments company Whoosh. Daily sales rocketed 227% on Black Friday, Whoosh ’ s Thabang Wessie told Business Day.
As SA recovers from the devastating effect of Covid-19, consumers seem to have gone out of their way to take advantage of special deals, offers and prices on Black Friday, according to data from payments company Whoosh.
Whoosh is a payment gateway service provider, allowing merchants to process transactions on a web portal and mobile applications.
Thabang Wessie, head of business development, sales and marketing at Whoosh, told Business Day daily sales rocketed 227% on Black Friday versus the daily average transaction count.
“As most of our customers ran weeklong promotions, particularly from November 23 leading to November 29, [it] created a 35% increase in transactions versus our weekly average,” he said.
Wessie, a sales specialist formerly at Nestlé and Bidvest, said the highest performers were merchants within the fashion and alcohol sectors, while 100% of transactions were done with bank cards.
Whoosh’s data is in line with Prosus-backed payments provider PayU, which reported a 14.1% year-on-year growth in transaction volumes on the day. A total 95% of payments on the platform were done with bank cards, with fashion a clear leader as merchants experienced 117% more transaction activity on the day.
Lebeko Mphelo, founder and CEO of Whoosh, says the growth in adoption of e-commerce by consumers this year and increased proliferation of fintech operators have been good for their business.
Fintech companies need payment gateways,” he says, explaining that online stores and services offering alternative digital payment methods usually have a business such as Whoosh that helps to process their transactions.
As a payments gateway,
Whoosh makes its money by charging transaction fees and helps businesses to manage their e-commerce platforms, says Wessie.
While Whoosh, founded in 2014 after recognising the need for mobile card readers in SA, is processing a growing volume of payments, the company has been looking to other e-commerce areas for new revenues.
As retailers and many other businesses in SA continue to increase their digital presence, Whoosh is also looking to become the payments and bill processor of choice.
Mphelo, a former investment analyst with experience companies such as Alexander Forbes and Etico Capital, says they are looking to grow Whoosh’s billsprocessing arm, ama Bills, as an area of focus for growth, going against established players such as Blue Label Telecoms.
Blue Label, a technology company that specialises in virtual distribution of prepaid power and airtime, has moved aggressively into electricity revenue collection for cashstrapped municipalities.
Blue Label’s group revenue was 7% up at R59.9bn for the year to end-May. Its gross electricity sales increased 13% to R22.7bn for the period, remaining consistent even through the difficult April and May lockdown months.
Through its subsidiary, Cigicell, the company has traditionally made this revenue by selling prepaid electricity tokens on behalf of about 95 municipalities and Eskom since 2004. That leaves 183 municipalities that Whoosh can go after and the company seems to be making headway already, now selling electricity on behalf of City of Polokwane, City Power Johannesburg, Mangaung, City of Ekurhuleni, eThekwini Municipality, City of Tshwane and Eskom.
Whoosh is also competing with banks and other companies such as Net1’s EasyPay in this market.