Skip to content

Black Friday and Cyber Monday: far more online purchases, fewer in physical shops

Published on:

The days leading up to and including Black Friday and Cyber Monday were primarily an online shopping event. An estimated nearly 50% more purchases were paid for with iDEAL at online shops than in the same period a year earlier, for an amount almost 30% higher. At physical points of sale, debit card payments were down by more than 10%, with turnover between 5% and 10% lower.

Illustration of online purchase: customer confirms payment via smartphone with fingerprint next to laptop with shopping cart and purple order button.
Customer makes a contactless debit card payment at a checkout

Compared with a normal week in September 2020, payments with iDEAL at online shops were almost 55% more frequent, with turnover more than 85% higher. At physical shops, the estimated number of debit card payments was a few per cent higher than normal, for an amount more than 5% higher.

Combined transactions and turnover still lower than a year earlier

The sharp rise in online purchases paid for with iDEAL could not fully offset the lower number of debit card payments at physical shops compared with the previous year. The combined number of iDEAL transactions at online shops and debit card payments at points of sale was still estimated to be between 5% and 10% lower than in the same period a year earlier. Estimated combined turnover was also a few per cent lower.

Busiest iDEAL day ever

In absolute terms, Black Friday was by far the busiest iDEAL day ever, with around 4.65 million transactions worth an estimated €395 million. This includes all iDEAL transactions outside e-commerce, such as person-to-person mobile payment requests including Tikkies, as well as invoices, taxes, fines and similar payments.

Over 14 shopping hours on Friday, an average of 90 iDEAL payments were made per second.

During these shopping days, Saturday was the busiest day for debit card payments at points of sale, with around 19 million payments worth €564 million. That was not a daily record, which is usually set on 24 December.

At the peak of the day, at around 12:45 pm, transaction processor equensWorldline recorded 580 debit card transactions per second.

Related articles