Square and Afterpay Sellers Hit Record-Breaking Black Friday and Cyber Monday With 70M Transactions

Globally, the peak minute of shopping occurred on Black Friday at 2:09 pm ET on November 24, 2023 

Cities with the largest volume of sales were New York, Los Angeles, London, Chicago, and Miami

OAKLAND, CA, NOVEMBER 28, 2023 – Over the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend, millions of Square and Afterpay sellers across the world set a new record with 70M transactions, up 14% from last year. Consumers continued to display diverse shopping habits as in-person shopping increased 15%, while online cart sizes were 3.9X higher than in-person, reinforcing the need for sellers to optimize their omnichannel strategy for the remainder of the holiday season. Similarly, 9% more businesses leveraged the power of omnichannel by attracting buyers both in-person and online. All year-over-year data compares the Black Friday through Cyber Monday weekend of 2022 to 2023, and can also be viewed here. 

Black Friday and Cyber Monday Global Metrics:

• Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend proved to be busy for businesses beyond traditional retail. According to Square data, restaurants experienced a 15% increase in transactions, while 23% more restaurants sent Black Friday and/or Cyber Monday discounts to promote their business.
• Square found 108% more beauty and wellness sellers leaned into the shopping weekend by sending Black Friday and/or Cyber Monday discounts. Considering that in 2022, the most popular time for holiday appointments was December 20 – December 23 as beauty sellers used the weekend to promote their services early in the holiday season. 
• Despite a big weekend, the shopping season is just beginning. Last year, cart sizes in food, retail, and beauty grew 12% between the first week of December and the week before Christmas as consumers increased budgets to spoil friends and family. 

Consumers proved they want convenience and options with activated subscriptions growing 31% and pre-orders for hot-ticket items leading to transactions being 1.2X higher than the average Square Online order. Gift cards also reigned supreme with more than 338K sold, and most notably in food and drink, retail, beauty and wellness, and healthcare and fitness industries.

The average discount offered was 22% across all channels, with 35% more sellers offering discounts over the weekend. Square and Afterpay’s Festive Forecast found that 71% of Americans intended to shop for cheaper alternatives this holiday season as they look for deals to maximize savings, and sellers clearly understood this sentiment by leaning into a discounting strategy.

Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) transactions through Afterpay increased 19%, and Square sellers saw their Afterpay transactions grow 47%. The largest Afterpay item categories outside of fashion and beauty were hardware, home and garden, arts and entertainment, office supplies, and electronics as consumers used BNPL for more choice and flexibility at checkout during the holidays. As the popularity of mobile commerce increases, more consumers turned to the Afterpay app for all their shopping needs, with app usage up 16%. 

“During the Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping weekend, consumers turned out in droves to support their favorite businesses,” said Saumil Mehta, Head of Point of Sale and Omnichannel at Square. “We found that the holidays aren’t just for traditional retailers, as businesses across industries like restaurants and beauty lean into the major weekend. Given consumer sentiment has been positive around the holidays, and we know this weekend is often just the beginning, businesses should continue to expect an influx of shoppers, and be ready to meet them wherever they prefer to shop.”

Methodology:

All data presented are unaudited and subject to adjustment.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday: Square and Afterpay analyzed millions of transactions across all seller industries globally in 2023 from November 23, 11:00 UTC to November 27, 23:59 UTC. All monetary metrics are displayed in USD. Countries include the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, France, Ireland, Spain, and New Zealand. 

About Square

Square makes commerce and financial services easy and accessible with its integrated ecosystem of solutions. Square offers purpose-built software to run complex restaurant, retail, and professional services operations, versatile e-commerce tools, embedded financial services and banking products, buy now, pay later functionality through Afterpay, staff management and payroll capabilities, and much more – all of which work together to save sellers time and effort. Millions of sellers across the globe trust Square to power their business and help them thrive in the economy. For more information, visit www.squareup.com.

About Afterpay

Afterpay is transforming the way we pay by allowing anyone to buy products immediately and pay over time – enabling simple, transparent and responsible spending. We are on a mission to power an economy in which everyone wins. Afterpay is offered by thousands of the world’s favorite retailers and used by millions of active global customers. Afterpay is currently available in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United States and the United Kingdom, where it is known as Clearpay. Afterpay is a wholly owned subsidiary of Block, Inc. (NYSE: SQ).