When Black Friday comes around, you want your checkout performance at its best.
Peak shopping season, the holiday-packed period between November and New Year, is a critical time of year for ecommerce merchants. Euro News reports that Black Friday initiatives boosted sales for participating merchants by 175% compared to an average business day.
Despite the influx of new sales and higher revenue, Black Friday can cause some serious operational challenges, especially with payments. And the quality of your checkout flow can determine your fate.
Failed or abandoned transactions are a dime a dozen. Cart abandonment rose significantly in the fourth quarter of 2024, with the global online shopping cart abandonment rate hitting 81% during this period.
Even for customers that do make it all the way through the payment process, our research on European checkouts shows that 43% will not return to your business if your checkout experience causes them frustration and inconvenience, and that’s just on a normal day. Imagine the damage a poor ecommerce checkout process can cause if your checkout flow disrupts shopping during fast-paced Black Friday sales events.
If you’re not certain your payments setup is up to scratch, don’t worry. There’s still plenty of time ahead of Black Friday to get your payments stack in order and prepare for the coming spike in payment volume.
Why Black Friday requires a smooth checkout experience
Black Friday is one of the biggest shopping events of the year. Some customers plan their entire holiday shopping around this one day. Merchants can’t afford friction in the payment process on this day, as a poor customer experience can lead to the loss of millions of shoppers hunting for deals.
The shopping event presents businesses with three main payment challenges:
- A dramatic increase in payment volume
- Time-sensitive purchases and impatient customers
- Heightened risk of fraud attempts
A merchant’s checkout flow can often be a major point of frustration. If the checkout page feels slow or asks for too much payment information, the customer may feel the need to forego the purchase entirely to try and nab other deals before they’re gone.
Every added click increases the risk of losing sales. A streamlined ecommerce checkout process, with auto-fill options and clear progress indicators, helps customers move confidently toward completion.
Scalability is a necessity for handling increased payment volumes. Black Friday traffic surges can overwhelm your systems, leading to timeouts, failed transactions, or even full system outages in the worst cases. Your payment infrastructure must be prepared to handle peak payment volumes in order to preserve both your Black Friday revenue and your business reputation.
Why customers abandon a slow and outdated checkout experience
The checkout page is generally the make-or-break step of any online purchase.
If it feels outdated or unnecessarily complicated, customers will leave before completing their order.
A clean checkout page that highlights the essential information and makes it easy for customers to choose their preferred payment methods can help to reduce confusion and build trust during a shopping event that is often stressful for both customers and merchants.
Along with an intuitive checkout design, you also need a guest checkout process that makes customers feel safe and is secured against fraud. Not every customer will want to create an account with your business, so offering a guest checkout interface that is equally easy and efficient to use is key.
Cart checkout best practices to optimise your peak season sales
As Black Friday approaches, what actions can you take today to prepare for the looming sales spike?
It all starts with assessing the reliability of your online store payment interface and checkout process. The following four tips can help you achieve an exceptional customer experience this Black Friday:
1. Add speed and simplicity to your online checkout
Black Friday shoppers value convenience above all.
A slow or complicated checkout page is the fastest way to drive shoppers away on the days when you need them the most. Likewise, a multi-page checkout that redirects customers away from your main payment interface and adds extra steps into the process can be a huge turn-off and loyalty loser.
Your checkout page should be streamlined to the fullest extent, eliminating any unnecessary steps when completing a purchase. Every second saved keeps buyers moving forward, helping your ecommerce website capture more conversions during the busiest days of the year.
Small design optimisations can also transform the customer experience. For example, clearly displaying a progress bar reassures shoppers of how close they are to finalising the purchase, while auto-fill for returning customers reduces friction and helps them fill out their payment information quickly.
2. Local payment preferences matter, such as mobile checkout
The checkout page turns intent to buy into either action or frustration.
If the customer can easily navigate your payment interface via their preferred channels, such as mobile devices, the more likely they are to transact with you, even if you operate from a country different from their own. Shoppers in specific regions also often favor companies that allow them to buy with local payment schemes, such as iDEAL in the Netherlands.
Per The state of European checkouts report:
“The payment checkout experience is critical. Offering diverse payment preferences – including cards, digital wallets, account-to-account and the appropriate selection of localised options – removes potential barriers to purchase and leaves the customer with a suitably positive feeling about their experience.”
3. Offer high-spending shoppers rewards like promo codes
Not all customers are motivated by the same incentives, especially during peak season. High-value shoppers respond particularly well to added rewards such as waiving shipping costs or offering special promo codes. These perks encourage them to buy again and build long-term loyalty.
our How Europe likes to pay report recommends that, instead of pushing only for completed purchases, you should work to understand customers’ intent at different stages in the journey. The strategy you create to win both sales and loyalty should engage shoppers in a more nuanced way based on your discoveries of what your customers want at each stage.
4. Build a scalable payments infrastructure with reliable payment gateways
The customer-facing checkout design is not the only thing that matters.
Your technical payment infrastructure, operating behind the scenes, is what gives you the scalability and reliability you need to keep payments flowing efficiently. A well-designed checkout page means nothing without a precise technological foundation to power the checkout process.
Payment gateways play a big role in this. A payment gateway routes your transactions to the proper payment processing entities and banks for approval. As such, the payment gateway solution you choose must be easy to integrate and reliable in the face of large fluctuations in payment volume.
When Black Friday comes, your checkout process should work seamlessly under pressure.
A flexible infrastructure also supports growth into new markets and different regions that require unique payment methods. Using a multi-page checkout process can already create friction, but combined with gateway errors, it becomes a recipe for lost sales.
Investing in a high-quality payment gateway solution should be at the top of your list when preparing for Black Friday. Ideally, the solution you choose will offer the support needed for local and alternative payment methods on top of traditional card payments.
Offer payment methods that convert
Cards may still be the top dog of online store payment in most European regions, but that doesn’t mean they should be the only payment method you offer.
Alternative payment methods account for more than 60% of ecommerce transactions in several European markets. The Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) payment scheme has immense influence over how European consumers transact, but it’s not the only popular APM in the region. Usage of well-known digital wallets like PayPal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay has risen substantially in Europe.
Image source: How Europe likes to pay: a region-by-region guide to APM adoption
On a more micro-level, however, each individual nation on the continent has consumers with their own preferences for the type of payments they like to make. In payabl.’s How Europe likes to pay report, these preferences can be broadly sorted into five regional categories — Southern Europe, Western Europe, Northern Europe, Eastern Europe and The Baltics.
Despite some regional differences, particularly regarding local payment methods, the common theme across all regions is that digital payments are a necessity. Without them, customers abandon purchases in favor of companies that can offer the payment methods they desire.
Below, we’ve detailed some of the payment methods we offer at payabl. and why we view them as important pieces of the checkout puzzle during Black Friday and other shopping events:
Digital and mobile wallets
Digital wallets enable secure, one-tap payments that customers can make from their mobile devices. Wallets eliminate the need to re-enter card details on a checkout form, helping to expedite the transaction. Supporting Apple Pay, PayPal, and Google Pay helps merchants capture more sales when time-sensitive deals are on the line.
Additionally, digital wallets have become more prevalent and recognisable to customers, such as the PayPal checkout process. Familiarity with popular wallets can help speed up the payment process.
One click checkout options
For some customers, the most important feature of a merchant’s checkout page is how quickly they can finish the transaction. One page checkout options let customers securely store their payment information for instant reuse as needed, such as during a flash sale on Black Friday.
The convenience of your checkout flow can reduce cart abandonment by making payments as seamless as possible for shoppers. One-click payments allow customers to buy on the go without re-entering details, knowing they will have a satisfactory experience across both mobile and desktop channels.
Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL)
BNPL is a highly common payment choice during an ecommerce checkout. Shoppers feel more comfortable committing to more products thanks to BNPL’s split payment features that allow the customer to pay the sum over time rather than immediately.
Offering BNPL during events like Black Friday ensures flexibility and keeps customers from choosing competitors with more options.
Local cards
Supporting local cards is critical for anyone operating internationally.
Many regions prefer domestic card schemes over global networks. Failing to support these during Black Friday can lead to abandonment in favor of local options. Local card schemes can also help you take into account other regional costs, like local shipping costs or exchange rates. Including local options helps you deliver a familiar experience to customers outside of your home region.
Bank transfers
Bank transfers, though less common for ecommerce checkout scenarios, remain a trusted option for shoppers who prefer direct account-to-account payments. On Black Friday, they can offer security, speed, and reliability, while avoiding card limits or declined transactions.
Bank transfers also generally come with lower processing costs, helping balance profitability while expanding reach to customers who avoid cards or digital wallets.
Direct debits
Direct debits are also a less common option for ecommerce checkout use cases, but still a worthwhile payment method to consider adding to your payments stack.
SEPA Direct Debits, for example, can have a one page checkout and allow customers to complete transactions with a single or automated click (after a mandate has been signed, of course).
The ability of direct debits to automate recurring billing and reduce manual processing make them a good choice if you are selling subscription services or products during Black Friday.
The importance of multi-currency accounts and language support
Black Friday is global, so merchants must localise.
Multi-currency accounts let customers pay in their own currency, avoiding conversion and exchange fees along the way. Coupled with language support, you can create seamless cross-border shopping experiences on both your main checkout page and within your guest checkout process.
Together, multi-currency accounts and language support features aid you in reaching and winning conversions in more diverse international markets.
Optimised ecommerce checkout best practices win big
Peak shopping events like Black Friday put every step of your checkout process under duress.
Maximising conversions as a merchant requires you to design an ecommerce checkout page that is built around customer expectations, such as speed and security. Not only this, but you need a backend payment process that connects you to the right providers to make your transactions efficient and scalable.
Our final three best practices for making the most of Black Friday payments are as follows:
Choose a secure gateway you can trust
A trustworthy payment gateway will reduce fraud and help build customer confidence at every stage of a transaction. For instance, payabl.gateway allows you to accept online payments from around the globe in a wide range of payment methods and currencies.
No matter what gateway solution you choose, it’s important to opt for a provider that can maintain your operational resilience in the face of technical mishaps or outages.
Remove friction for customers entering payment information
Cart abandonment often happens when the ecommerce checkout page feels complicated or time-consuming. To prevent this, keep forms intuitive and straightforward. Offering a smooth guest checkout process allows first-time buyers to complete their purchase without creating an account, while automated tools can quickly capture details like the billing address.
The easier it is for customers to provide their payment information, the more likely they are to finalise the transaction. Reducing unnecessary steps makes checkout effortless.
Make it easy for customers to pay according to their preferences
A recognisable checkout flow reassures customers they are paying securely.
Supporting diverse options within the ecommerce checkout process, ensures your checkout process matches shopper preferences. Recent payabl. research shows that PayPal reigns as one of the most popular payment methods for online shopping, used by half of all customers across Europe. Making sure you offer these types of alternative payments and digital wallets is key.
Whether it’s your customer-facing checkout page or your backend ecommerce checkout process, optimisation is a necessity ahead of any major shopping event. Going into Black Friday prepared is your ticket to successfully managing the massive influx of payments that come with it.
How to prep for peak season
Want to discover more about how you can improve your online checkout experience during Black Friday and beyond? Read the ebook, Is your checkout Black Friday ready?