Don’t ignore payments tech ahead of retail’s most important events
The holiday season is fast approaching and, with that, the shopping frenzy that sees people around the world hunker down in search of the season's best deals. For retailers, the spotlight is on Black Friday—traditionally the day after Thanksgiving in the U.S., now a global, multi-day event that drives both in-store and online sales.
Black Friday has become a cornerstone of the retail calendar, with revenues achieved during this period serving as a key market indicator for analysts trying to gauge retailers' relative health vis-a-vis each other, consumer sentiment, and overall behavior.
The online component of Black Friday has become particularly critical, with a record $9.8 billion spent online during the holiday in 2023 – up 7.5% year-on-year. Such an increase, however, has translated into significant growing pains for merchants.
Last year's Black Friday events revealed some critical vulnerabilities across the ecosystem when Chase Bank, as detailed by Down Detector, mistakenly declined hundreds of credit card purchases, and Visa experienced a staggering 68% spike in card payment issues during the period, causing widespread frustration and likely resulting in many unrealized sales.
To navigate these challenges and ensure success during major global shopping events like Black Friday – and indeed, Alibaba's Singles' Day, which arrives shortly before on 11/11 – retailers must proactively leverage advanced payment technologies. Adopting the latest in payment orchestration solutions is key, as it enables merchants to mitigate risks from potential provider outages and unexpected disruptions. In an age where a single failed transaction can push customers toward competitors, the margin for error is razor-thin.
The growing need to balance the expectations of diverse consumer groups and the complexities of international payments has spurred the rise of payment orchestrators like Yuno. These platforms help merchants seamlessly integrate with multiple payment providers, streamline online checkout processes, and use AI-driven tools to quickly address disruptions. By connecting with over 300 payment processors worldwide, Yuno's smart routing capabilities ensure transactions are rerouted if one provider falters, boosting approval rates and maximizing transaction efficiency. Recently, Yuno has also introduced Monitors, a feature that allows merchants to set up custom alerts based on transaction acceptance rates, enabling the swift detection and resolution of payment issues.
Monitors and token portability, which allows you to use your tokens with any provider, process payments through any processor and ensure recurring payments with fallbacks, not to mention more secure digital identifiers, are just two features in the right payment orchestrator's broader toolkit aiming to fight against potential revenue loss. They help maintain business continuity during network outages and other disruptions, such as automatic fraud rules being applied to genuine transactions or problems at a payment processor or acquirer, because they help businesses to seamlessly move customer data between gateways and allow merchants to quickly switch between different payment service providers (PSPs) without any interruption to payment processing.
Payment orchestrators like Yuno also provide robust fraud detection and prevention tools, which are essential for Black Friday, when fraudulent activity tends to surge. In fact, Barclay's reported a 22% increase in purchase scam losses during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales in 2022, with victims losing an average of £970. By leveraging advanced fraud prevention mechanisms, payment orchestrators help retailers reduce these risks while ensuring that genuine transactions are not mistakenly flagged or declined, safeguarding both revenue and customer trust.
As this year's Black Friday approaches, the true differentiator for retailers will be their ability to safeguard security, maintain operational continuity, and deliver an exceptional shopping experience amid surging transaction volumes and increased scam attempts. I'm proud that payment orchestrators, like our team at Yuno, will be working behind the scenes to help merchants maximize the day's potential and capitalize on every opportunity.
