With Black Friday once again over the payday period, shoppers are expected to focus on value rather than volume, with consumer behaviour remaining cautious over the period.
South African consumers remain under significant financial pressure despite lower inflation and interest rates. Persistent challenges such as elevated utility costs, high food prices and rising transport expenses continue to strain household budgets.
Against this backdrop, Absa anticipates that consumer behaviour during Black Friday 2025 will remain cautious, with a strong focus on value.
Last year, e-commerce was not as strong as in prior years. Absa anticipates that the growth of buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) services will provide a lift this year for e-commerce merchants.
From the perspective of the retail client, BNPL will remain a popular credit choice for younger and non-credit product customers to support short-term needs-based credit, both in the point-of-sale and online shopping environments.
The convenience and variety presented by online shopping, and the ability to buy wide-ranging items (including bigger ones) from a single e-commerce outlet, will continue to drive growth.
While the average transaction value of in-store purchases has remained stable at around R375 during peak shopping periods over the past two years, the average transaction value of online purchases jumped from R511 to R622 year-on-year during the latter part of November 2024.
From a payment acceptance perspective, Absa anticipates 10% growth in spending on Black Friday itself, potentially breaching the R4,5-billion mark.
“We anticipate completing 9,75-million transactions for our merchants on Black Friday. Category leaders for growth have been the food and grocery businesses historically, and we anticipate this to be the same for 2025,” says Andrew Wilmot, executive for payments acceptance at Absa Business Banking.
Absa is the biggest payments processor on the continent and is ranked number 59 globally for merchant acquiring, according to the latest Nilson Report. The bank processed 1,87-billion card transactions in 2024.
This Black Friday, South African consumers can expect:
- Moderate discounts in the 5% to 20% range;
- Targeted promotions on specific items or stock, rather than broad-based sales;
- Discounts linked to loyalty programmes; and
- Online-exclusive offers, which are increasingly preferred over in-store deals.
Don’t fall victim to fraud this Black Friday
With social engineering on the rise, fraudsters or syndicates typically try to trick customers into disclosing their personal and confidential information.
Criminal syndicates pretend to be from a bank and share personal information often causing customers to “let their guard down” and disclose confidential information.
Crucially, one should never approve a mobile banking application request or any other transaction request if you’re not the one who is carrying out the transaction in question.