The South African economy grew slightly in November, according to the BankservAfrica Economic Transaction Index (BETI) which showed growth over the three measurement periods – most likely the result of retail sales over the Black Friday and Cyber Monday period.
“The real value of transactions grew by 0.3% between November and October and on a quarterly basis, the growth experienced was 0,2%,” according to Shergeran Naidoo, head of stakeholder relations at BankservAfrica. On an annual basis, the BETI grew by 0,3%.
“Interestingly the number of real-time clearing transactions increased to over 3 million for the first time showing that this new method of paying between bank accounts is fast gaining large acceptance.”
The BETI does not account for card transactions, however, the growth shown in the BETI is linked to the major shopping days in November, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, where a total of 5,2-million in total volume of card transactions were recorded. More significant was the 55% growth in online sales for Black Friday and 36,4% for Cyber Monday.
“While on one level these show the change in behaviour of South African shoppers to online, for the BETI these reveal the growing impact of these days on transactional volumes,” says Mike Schüssler, chief economist at Economists dotcoza.
The actual number of transactions, as captured by the BETI, increased by 7,6% while the raw value of transactions grew by 5,6%. These indicate South Africans shopped up a storm on Black Friday after months of savings.
This is reflected in the average value of transactions which declined as retailers jumped on the bandwagon of Black Friday. The whole supply chain was put under pressure to produce bargains for retailers who then, in turn, passed on their savings to consumers, explains Schüssler.
Naidoo points out that the average value per transaction was R8 636, down from R8 801 in November 2017. These, however, include wholesale, manufacturer and transport transactions – and therefore does not represent the average value of retail transactions.