As we all know, various brands announce special discount periods with different names every November, including “Black Friday” and “11.11,” which ring the shopping bells for consumers.
November discounts herald a fruitful period for companies providing products and services to consumers, where they can significantly boost their revenues.
But how prepared are these companies, especially in operational and technical infrastructure, for the intense November discount season?
Preparations for the November Discount Season
For companies engaged in online service or product sales, preparation for the November discount season involves not only software infrastructure but also aspects like packaging, inventory preparation, campaign creation, and preparations for the shipping process. Equally important is planning the payment step, one of the most critical steps in the shopping experience, to ensure it doesn’t disrupt the user/customer experience. Many e-commerce giants start preparing their infrastructure operationally and technically months before the November discount season, which is the most productive period in terms of payment volume.
Keeping Your Customers from Abandoning Their Carts During the November Discount Season
As mentioned before, the upcoming discount season requires online payment businesses to be fully prepared. Considering the competitive landscape, if users abandon their shopping carts for any reason, businesses may face potential revenue losses. Therefore, during busy periods like the November discount season, not only operational aspects but also the seamless operation of the technical infrastructure is crucial.
At this point, e-commerce companies and businesses that facilitate payments online should know why users abandon their carts and take necessary precautions, especially during high-potential seasons like November.
According to a report by Baymard Institute, approximately 70% of users abandon their carts, and the reasons behind cart abandonment are multifactorial. One of the most notable reasons is “research” and/or “price comparison.” Worldwide, consumers aim to find the best products and services at the most favorable prices and conditions. To achieve this, they research and compare prices on multiple websites simultaneously.
Several studies reveal that the behavior of adding products to the cart without completing the purchase is often due to the “Just browsing, not ready to buy” approach.
The report also highlights that another significant reason for users abandoning their carts is the improper design of the payment step and technical issues during payment.
Taking into account competition, diversity, and other distracting factors, the moment a website visitor moves past the purchase step and creates order is crucial for users/customers and a significant achievement for businesses. The conclusion of the report remains unchanged: for whatever reason, when the cart doesn’t convert into a purchase, it results in potential revenue loss for businesses.
Craftgate Helps Businesses During the November Discount Season!
At Craftgate, we focus on making our merchants’ payment steps frictionless by eliminating all payment-related issues and enabling them to have a simple and easy payment process for their customers.
Craftgate offers many value-added services, including the Autopilot feature. Craftgate’s Autopilot feature is an automation that instantly monitors merchants’ virtual POSs and automatically redirects them to the working one in case of downtime. Thus, Craftgate merchants can continue to receive payments without interruptions, while their customers can continue their shopping experience without being affected by such downtimes.
Additionally, Craftgate merchants can use the “Closed Loop Wallet” solution to combine limits when their customers’ limits are insufficient, even if they load from multiple cards. With these and many other services, Craftgate provides advantages to merchants in terms of the payment experience during the November discount season.
How Did the November Discount Season Go in 2021?
While emphasizing the importance of frictionless shopping steps, especially the payment step, during discount seasons like November, let’s look at the data from the November discount season in 2021.
According to a report by Gemius, nearly 57 million users accessed e-commerce websites during the November 2021 discount season.
Similarweb’s report examining the conversion statistics of leading e-commerce websites for the years 2019-2020-2021 highlights that during November, there was a jump in the total number of visits that led to conversions compared to the rest of the year.
Research conducted during Black Friday shows that compared to the Black Friday period of 2020, transaction volume increased by 38%, and transaction volume increased by 22%.
In 2021, compared to the Black Friday period of 2020, the number of transactions passed with credit cards increased by 12%, and with bank cards, there was a 43% increase.
In summary, due to the high transaction volumes and the substantial size of the pie in November discounts, competition is fierce. “To ensure customers smoothly complete the payment step and prevent potential revenue loss is critical for businesses in the online payment sector.
In this period, just like in previous years, it is obvious that the November discount season will be highly competitive for e-commerce players.
As always, we ensure that our merchants are prepared for the payment steps during the November discount season. We wish for this period to be productive for both consumers and businesses.
Statistics for the November 2022 Discount Period
- According to the data provided by Craftgate, the payment volume in November increased by 203% compared to October and by 867% compared to November of the previous year.
- A similar increase is also visible in the number of payments. While the number of payments in November increased by 178% compared to October, the number of payments in November 2022 increased by 445% compared to November of the previous year.
- In November 2023, with an average basket amount of 2,181 TL, the highest number of payments and volume was, as expected, on 11.11 and Black Friday. The shopping on these two days constituted 9.10% of the payments in November.
- When examining the payment transactions in November 2022, Craftgate highlighted that 73.59% of the payments were made in a single payment, and 26.41% were made in installments. Among the installment payments, half were in 3 installments and one-third were in 6 installments.
- Although the use of installments increased this year, consumers still preferred single payments for their payments. Last year, 74.54% of payments in November were in a single payment, and 25.45% were in installments.
- The payment volume of member merchants, including Turkey’s leading e-commerce companies, through Craftgate was 527 million TRY at the end of 2021, reached 6 billion TRY at the end of 2022, and reached 32.5 billion TRY at the end of 2023.
Statistics for the November 2023 Discount Period
- According to the data provided by Craftgate, the payment volume in November increased by 40.64% compared to October and by 361.43% compared to November of the previous year.
- A similar increase is also noticeable in the number of payments. While the number of payments in November 2023 increased by 42.95% compared to October, the number of payments in November 2023 increased by 86.26% compared to November of the previous year.
- In November 2023, with an average basket amount of 2,181 TRY, the highest number of payments and volume was, as expected, on 11.11 and Black Friday. The shopping on these two days constituted 9.10% of the payments in November.
- When examining the payment transactions in November 2023, Craftgate highlighted that 76.92% of the payments were made with credit cards, 20.85% with bank cards, 1% with prepaid cards, and 1.23% with foreign cards.
- The payment volume passed through Craftgate technology was 0.53 billion TRY at the end of 2021, exceeded 6 billion TRY at the end of 2022, and reached 32.5 billion TRY by the end of 2023.
