Decline in sales on Black Friday despite record mobile payments
Bargain hunters made fewer cashless payments on this year's Black Friday in Switzerland than last year. However, there was a new record for mobile payments on Friday.
No new shopping record on Black Friday 2023: For the first time since 2019, Swiss retailers recorded lower sales with credit, debit and mobile payments compared to the previous year.
Customers spent around two percent less money than in 2022, according to an analysis by the news agency AWP based on data from Monitoring Consumption Switzerland.
New record for mobile payments
Nevertheless, the discount battle was once again extremely lucrative for Swiss retailers this year. The numerous price reductions and advertising measures ensured that more than twice as much money was spent on Black Friday than on an average Friday in 2023.
Mobile payments even reached a record high on Friday. On no other day since data collection began at the start of 2019 have the Swiss spent more money via Twint, Apple Pay and co.
Overall, around 15 percent of all cashless payments on this year's Black Friday were made using smartphone payment apps. In 2022, the proportion was 11 percent.
Local shopping on the rise
Customers also increasingly took out their credit cards in stores again. 87% of all credit card payments on Black Friday were made at the point of sale and only 13% online. In 2022, the proportion of e-commerce payments was still 17%.
However, the Black Friday effect was not just limited to Friday: customers' desire to buy was practically unbroken on the following Saturday too. Overall, Swiss retailers recorded an increase in sales of around 20% last week compared to the week before.
Black Friday as an important sales booster
Black Friday is a discount day that originated in America and has long since established itself in Switzerland. It is celebrated on the Friday after the US Thanksgiving holiday and is now the most important sales booster for Swiss retailers alongside the Easter and Christmas sales.
The data from Monitoring Consumption Switzerland includes cashless payments that are processed via the network of the financial services provider Worldline in Switzerland. They are made available to the public for research purposes. Cash payments are not included in the statistics. For data protection reasons, no absolute figures are shown. (AWP/Simon Wolanin)
