Black Friday, the day after the Thanksgiving holiday in the US (celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November), and Cyber Monday, the first Monday after Thanksgiving, mark the start of the year-end holiday shopping season.
Figures from the United States National Retail Federation shows that over 151 million consumers made purchases online and in physical stores during the most recent Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping seasons.
The trend, however, is becoming global. In Asia, where connected shoppers are constantly searching for the best deals, often crossing physical and geographical boundaries, Black Friday and Cyber Monday have been integrated into the retail experience. This, despite the popularity of China’s own Single’s Day online shopping festival that is also being adopted by many retailers across the region.
Warren Hayashi, President, Asia-Pacific, Adyen, said this is partly due to the growth of cross-border e-commerce, which is giving Asian consumers access to both US and European retailers, who market Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions in the region and ship to Asia.
The trend has also been driven by the growing reach of US e-commerce giants like Amazon, which has meant that e-commerce companies based in other markets, such as Lazada, Qoo10, Rakuten, Alibaba, and Zalora, are rolling out similar promotional periods.
“An interesting effect of this trend is that rather than adversely affecting transactions during the non-promotion period, we are seeing that seasonal shopping promotions actually expand the size of the market. They provide consumers with even more opportunities to shop,” he explained.
Ayden’s data shows that in Asia, sales volumes increased by 170 percent in a year-on-year comparison over the course of the Black Friday weekend. Meanwhile, shoppers in China spent twice the amount during Black Friday 2015 as compared to the same period in 2014. In Japan, the average transaction value increased by 50 percent.
Interestingly, the payments industry for online and offline retail is also innovating to keep up with these developments in the retail scene. Ayden sees that companies are also going global with a payments first approach.
“For example, we have Asian merchants expanding into Europe with their English-language website and local payment methods, such as iDEAL in the Netherlands (which accounts for over 60 percent of transaction volume in that market), SOFORT in Germany, and so on,” Hayashi shared.
“Likewise, we have global customers selling in Asian markets from their global website, but offering targeted payment methods such as Alipay, which are dynamically offered at the checkout stage according to the shopper’s geographical location. This is a huge opportunity for retailers to expand globally,” he added.
Interestingly, he said one of the most innovative payments technologies that is changing the user experience is the zero-click transaction – which takes place in the background, without any action required by the customer. An example is how Uber is accepting payments.
“When passengers take an Uber, they do not need to take any specific action for the payment to be made, everything happens in the background. This kind of frictionless connectivity brings businesses closer to their customers and will spread rapidly,” he explained.
In 2016, Hayashi sees the retail landscape in the region as going more on mobile, especially in the area of payments.
Citing Ayden’s own data – tracked quarterly through the Mobile Payments Index – shows that Asia-based payment methods such as Alipay, UnionPay, and JCB have among the highest proportions of mobile payments globally.
“With everything they do around payments, retailers should simply be asking themselves, how does this improve the customer experience? One key goal should be to provide a frictionless payment experience across channels,” he said.
“For mobile, along with optimizing the size of the page, many merchants find that a “less is more” approach drives conversion increases, with page layout minimized to ensure the smoothest possible payment flow,” he continued. “It’s also important to remember that the checkout stage of the shopper should be the beginning of an on-going relationship with the consumer. Merchants that have created a frictionless checkout experience, regardless of the channel, see sustained increases in their repeat customers and purchases.”