With Black Friday around the corner, retailers need to ensure they are offering sufficient ways to pay and meet the evolving expectations of consumers, according to Love Discount Vouchers.
Research suggests that the average spend per person on the Black Friday weekend will be down 40% from 2022, meaning retailers need to expand their payment options to allow other ways to pay.
It is established that 60% of consumers are likely to abandon their carts should they not be able to pay with their preferred payment method, such as BNPL, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and PayPal. Therefore it is vital that businesses offer a variety of payment options or risk losing out on sales.
Gen Z
The average spend per person on the Black Friday weekend will be down 40% from 2022. Eight in 10 members of Generation Z, aged 18-23, intend to make purchases during the sales and their average spend will be approximately 56% higher than the national average. dotdigital found that 84% of Gen Z shoppers believe that Black Friday deals offer good value, but Gen Z are particularly savvy shoppers, using all resources available to help bag a bargain. It looks likely that retailers will need to adapt their strategies to target this important demographic to ensure a successful Black Friday.
Customer experience
Not only can offering multiple payment methods improve the customers’ experience, but it also improves the conversion rate. One of the biggest points of the purchase process retailers lose customers is at checkout – data collected by Quantilope shows that 72% of shoppers will be paying for their Black Friday purchases using a debit card, and 48% will use their credit card.
E-Wallets
According to checkout.com, 53% of consumers in the UK use E-wallets from providers such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, and PayPal. Largely used on mobile, E-wallets are important for driving conversion rates and are an important payment option considering over 55% of web traffic comes from mobiles. Gogoi, 2017, identified that there was greater satisfaction in using E-wallets which compelled users to make greater purchases. It is established that 60% of consumers are likely to abandon their carts should they not be able to pay with their preferred payment method.
BNPL
26% of the UK plan to use BNPL as a payment method this coming Black Friday, while 53% of BNPL payments are being made through Klarna in 2021 – BusinessofApps. Global payments have analysed that BNPL has been an incentive for consumers to purchase with retailers, advertising BNPL at multiple parts of the consumer journey.
Prepaid cards
Over the coming 5 years, the total value of digital prepaid card transactions is set to reach $3.98 trillion, according to research conducted by Juniper Research. Prepaid cards are also a particularly popular incentive to purchase with there being an increase in customer rewards, such as cashback.
Cryptocurrency
Retailers need to wake up to the increasing number of individuals using and investing in cryptocurrencies, with a large market of consumers ready to spend their amassed crypto wealth. According to The Wall Street Journal, there are a staggering 220 million people who use cryptocurrency1 as a payment method, paying for everything from travel to sports tickets.
An overwhelming number of retailers currently accepting cryptocurrency as a payment method (93%) have seen an uplift in their business’ customer metrics, including both the size of their customer base and their brand awareness.