There are two extraordinarily important liquidity seasons coming up for your business: the Black Friday which, like last year, will be spread over several weeks, and the ever-prodigal shopper Christmas.
According to a recent Netsonda studyIn 2020, almost nine out of ten Portuguese are planning to shop during Black Friday and spend an average of 327 euros, five euros more than last year, with the products that should be most in demand being technology (56% of purchase intentions compared to 55% in 2020), followed by fashion and accessories (48% compared to 49% in 2020), household appliances (37% compared to 36% in 2020), perfumes and cosmetics (24% of purchase intentions compared to 25% in 2020) and books, which round off the top 5, are expected to attract the attention of 24% of consumers.
If the online sales channel, e-commerce, is here to stay and is already part of the Portuguese consumer's day-to-day life, for Black Friday and Christmas it is expected, as the study documents, that there will be a "significant increase" in the percentage of consumers who will split their purchases between the online and physical channels, from 41% last year to the 56% expected this year.
Despite a drop in the number of respondents who intend to take advantage of Black Friday's big promotions exclusively via the Internet, from 36% in 2020 to 21% in 2021, this channel remains extremely appealing due to the convenience and speed it offers, as can be seen in the following figures figures from Banco de Portugal's latest Payment Systems Report which tells us that, last year alone, online shopping grew by 32.3% in number of transactions and by 9.6% in total value, with a large part of this growth occurring during Black Friday and Christmas.
Given these figures and consumer trends, it's extremely important that you prepare your business to boost sales on Black Friday and Christmas. How? By paying special attention to payment methods that you provide to your customers, regardless of whether you have a physical, online or omnichannel (physical and online) shop.
Online Payment Methods - E-Commerce
Due to the growth in online shopping, we've started our guide to preparing your business for Black Friday and Christmas by online payment methods that you must make available to your customers.
As we've seen, shopping through e-commerce are already part of Portuguese consumers' daily lives, forcing businesses to rethink their online payment methods and offer solutions adapted to new consumer habits.
In this field, REDUNIQ has developed simple and secure solutions for accepting online payments, adapted to the specific needs of each business. These are REDUNIQ@Payments and REDUNIQ E-Commerce.
REDUNIQ@Payments
Aimed at online businesses, REDUNIQ@Payments is a turnkey solution that allows you to receive payments by WhatsApp, e-mail and SMS, via Multibanco, Visa and Mastercard, by Multibanco reference or MB WAY.
Simple and safe @Payments provides a platform, optimised for smartphones and tablets, where the business creates a link that can be sent by email, SMS or WhatsApp.
When the customer receives the link, all they have to do is click and they will be redirected to a secure REDUNIQ page, thus ensuring that the business does not have access to the card details at any stage of the payment.
Advantages:
- Online payments by WhatsApp, e-mail or SMS (payment link issued via the REDUNIQ portal);
- Fast remote payments (you can generate the payment immediately to the customer's mobile phone);
- No need for a website or integration with the business website (since the portal is REDUNIQ's), which simplifies the whole process in terms of time and costs;
- The payment page recognises the type of browser and automatically adapts to the screen of smartphones and tablets, without the need for any adjustments by the merchant;
- No monthly fees, no minimum income (you only pay the fees for the payments you make) and no fixed costs.
REDUNIQ E-Commerce
As well as allowing the site to accept online payments with Visa and Mastercard debit and credit cards from all over the world, by Multibanco reference and MB WAY through a simple integration process, the REDUNIQ E-Commerce is a solution that, among other advantages, not only provides your business with better management of online sales made, but also guarantees that the customer's card details are recorded (tokenisation) so that they don't have to enter this information again for future purchases, making one-click shopping a reality.
Everything is extremely simple. At the time of payment, the customer is directed to a UNICRE payment page where they have to enter their card details so that the issuing bank can validate them. Once validated, the money will be credited to your account in just two working days after the date of the transaction. It should be emphasised that you will never have access to the customer's bank details during the entire process.
Advantages:
- It allows you to accept online payments with cards from the main international issuing systems (Visa and Mastercard) and to manage your sales;
- Simple and fast integration with technical support from REDUNIQ's team of experts;
- There are no membership costs;
- Tuition fee offer;
- It allows the customer's card details to be registered, so that future purchases don't have to be re-entered - one click shopping;
- Possibility of integration with the main shopping carts on the market;
- Integrated view of the entire business, with access to reports and performance analyses;
- Greater security: transactions are always verified and validated by the issuing bank and the merchant never has access to the customer's bank details.
Payment Methods in a Physical Store
The shopping season, which will begin on 26 November with Black Friday and end close to the new year, won't be all about online shopping. With 86% of the Portuguese vaccinated and most of the restrictions resulting from the pandemic already lifted, we can expect, as we saw in the Netsonda study, an increase in the influx of customers to physical shops.
This once again emphasises the importance of businesses equipping their shops with payment terminals that have contactless technology. According to latest REDUNIQ Insights reportIn August of this year alone, the contactless payments accounted for 67% of the total transactions made on REDUNIQ's payment network, a figure that contrasts with the 4% of January 2019, and which proves the gradual consolidation of contactless payments and the growing adherence of the Portuguese to new ways of paying based on the use of smartphones or wearables.
In order to accommodate this trend in face-to-face payments, REDUNIQ is offering physical businesses the new Android POS with contactless. REDUNIQ@Smart. In addition to allowing payments by card or smartphone, with contactlessWith a chip, MB Way or Apple Pay, this Android terminal gives economic agents the chance to reduce waiting times and, consequently, the size of queues, as well as to develop apps tailored to their business and their customers' needs on the POS itself.
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