Many stores may go off-line today
Payment platforms often buckle under pressure
Many local e-commerce businesses will lose out on sales through cumbersome payment and checkout processes that cause customers to abandon their virtual shopping carts on Black Friday.
Thomas Pays, chief executive of automated EFT payment provider Ozow, made this prediction on the eve of the country’s biggest shopping event.
He said that in 2018 many major payment platforms in SA buckled under the transaction volumes and went off-line even before stores officially opened for business, causing thousands of lost sales.
“Black Friday and Cyber Monday are a tremendous opportunity for local e-commerce businesses to make money. It’s the perfect platform to drive sales, attract new customers, and create consumer excitement. But in a tough economy it’s vital that you’re able to process every transaction reliably and securely.
“Customers won’t wait for poor experiences. If you’re making them fill out numerous fields, or you’re unprepared for the boom in site traffic, you’re pushing your would-be customers to your competitors,” Pays said.
Online consumers spent a record R2.9bn in 2018. E-commerce experts are expecting that figure to jump by 30% in 2019. Superbalist co-chief executive Luke Jedeikin predicts the online fashion retailer will “smash” more records in 2019.
“Last year, Superbalist reached a record R40m in sales, with 180,000 items sold. This amounted to 115% year-on-year growth.”
Footwear and accessories led the charge in 2018 as the most popular department on Black Friday. Jedeikin said the company’s engineering team was preparing for Black Friday by testing its systems rigorously to support the expected influx of traffic and pre-empt problems.
Gerald Mwandiambira, acting CEO of the SA Savings Institute, said the biggest Black Friday deals were likely to be found online because there were lower overheads in getting goods to the consumer. “Is Black Friday good for SA? Yes. It is good for the economy. The economy right now is depressed. In order to get our economic data and gross domestic product numbers to start moving upwards, consumer spending is a good thing,” he said.
“From a Savings Institute perspective it’s obviously very good to only see planned spending as opposed to people spending money that they do not have. My advice is to make sure that discounts are real, and if you haven’t planned to shop on Black Friday, avoid it.”
Pays offered these online safety tips: Shop with popular e-commerce retailers. Trustworthy sites are able to handle large volumes of transactions through a safe automated process.
Do not trust non-secure checkouts. Be alert when mobile-shopping. While it is convenient, shopping on your mobile device introduces many new security challenges.