The day bargain hunters in South Africa has finally come as consumers search for the best deals this Black Friday.

One of the country’s largest banks FNB said it expects their customers to splurge at least R3 billion this Black Friday.

Online payment systems builder Peach Payments has created a Black Friday dashboard to track transactions made during the shopping extravaganza weekend.

The dashboard is live on the Peach Payments site from midnight tonight until midnight on Monday 2 December.

It tracks transactions processed via Peach's payment platform as well as other data points such as payment methods, provincial breakdowns and a live ticker of the Rand values of individual transactions.

Together, these provide a snapshot of the sheer volume of sales over this period.

The site also shares deals from Peach Payments merchants so shoppers can score big this Black Friday weekend.

“After the Black Friday Dashboard launch last year, we found that providing a snapshot of the overall volume of business helped merchants to get a grasp of the sheer volume of sales the South African economy supports. This has already helped build consumer confidence and helped merchants scale their businesses,” said Joshua Shimkin, Head of Marketing at Peach Payments.

A landmark study earlier this year by World Wide Worx, in partnership with Mastercard, Peach Payments, and Ask Afrika, revealed significant growth in South Africa's online retail sector, which surged to R71-billion in 2023 overall, a 29% increase from 2022, positioning the sector to break the R100-billion mark by 2026.

“Sales events like Black Friday and Christmas were deemed ‘very important’ by most respondents, indicating their critical impact on business performance,” Shimkin added.

The peachpayments.com/black-friday webpage also allows select merchants to promote their Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals in a social media display box, automated from Instagram posts that include the hashtag #PeachFriday.

“Part of our aim is to improve education and awareness around online payments, which go beyond retail and include B2B payments and other disbursements,. The dashboard gives South Africans a chance to see that we have world class technologies in the country and hopefully encourages small business owners as they start or extend their online companies,” Shimkin said.

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Watch how South Africans are buying on Black Friday