In Switzerland, Black Friday is already the biggest shopping event of the year. It always takes place on the Friday after Thanksgiving in the USA and this year fell on November 26th. The e-commerce sector also benefits from the most profitable day of the year.

The Swiss payment service provider Payrexx specializes in processing digital payments for small and medium-sized E-commerce Comerciantes and conducted a data survey of online transactions on Black Friday 2021 and the Friday before. In addition, the developments of the transactions on Black Friday were analyzed compared to the previous year.

Online sales twice as high

Compared to the previous Friday, the online sales processed via the Payrexx payment platform more than doubled on Black Friday. The most profitable times were in the morning. Consumers were particularly eager to buy between 10 and 12 o'clock, as the following graphs show.

Time analysis of transaction volume on 11/19/2021 and 11/26/2021

Online purchases increased by 85 percent

The number of transactions increased by around 85% and the increase of 10% in the average shopping cart size also shows that consumers are willing to spend more money on Black Friday.

Time analysis of the number of transactions on 11/19/2021 and 11/26/2021

Declines compared to last year

Compared to Black Friday 2020, the analysis of the average transaction volume per Comerciante showed a decline of 25%. Last year, the volume was CHF 1,346 per Comerciante, whereas this year it was only EUR 1,014.

An explanation for this is provided by the data from Adobe Analytics. According to the data, consumers returned to stores more frequently this year, which led to a decline in online trading.

Data collection

The data shows an analysis of the transactions processed via the Payrexx platform. The analysis is based on a sample of 550 E-commerce small businesses with a maximum transaction volume of 1 million CHF per year. The measurement includes data from 11/19/2021, 11/26/2021, and 11/27/2020 between 0:00 and 23:59 o'clock.

This is Payrexx

Payrexx was founded in Thun in 2015 and has specialized as a payment institution in processing digital payment methods. The Swiss company operates a self-developed payment platform as a registered payment facilitator for Mastercard and VISA. Over 40,000 customers across Europe process their payments via the cloud-based platform. The range includes regionally strong companies such as BKW, Swiss Youth Hostels, and Swissmilk to large corporations like SBB, the Swiss Post, Swisscom, and SIXT.

The platform integrates over 40 payment providers and more than 200 payment methods and currencies from around the world through a single interface. These include popular payment methods such as Mastercard and VISA as well as TWINT, PostFinance, and PayPal.

All systems of Payrexx are designed redundantly to guarantee the highest fail-safety and are certified according to the strictest PCI-DSS Level-1 guidelines.