Business
Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2021: A critical moment for checkout finance?
Published by Jessica Weisman-Pitts
Posted on October 14, 2021
4 min readLast updated: January 29, 2026
Global Banking & Finance Review®
Company
Published by Jessica Weisman-Pitts
Posted on October 14, 2021
4 min readLast updated: January 29, 2026
Checkout finance is key for merchants to maximize sales during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, offering flexible options to reduce cart abandonment.
By Mike Dawson, CEO of Deko
Many UK consumers will already have their sights set on the potential deals and savings Black Friday and Cyber Monday bring. Merchants, meanwhile, may be looking forward to the seasonal boost to their revenues that this period brings. This year’s festive period is set to be more crucial than ever as Britain’s wider economic recovery continues.
For merchants, ensuring their business is in a position to facilitate the maximum number of sales and attract the largest number of customers has never been more important. Assessing how your business is set up to maximise your checkout rates is therefore essential. By harnessing the power of fully flexible checkout finance, merchants can facilitate transactions which benefit both themselves and those who browse their sites.
Moreover, with the festive shopping commerce increasingly shifting online – as has been the case with the rest of the year’s retail activity – the need for digital solutions has never been greater. Merchants who embrace retail finance platforms, therefore, will stand the best chance of differentiating themselves in the competitive market.
Flexibility is increasingly important
Black Friday shoppers browse a wider range of product catalogues than at any other time of the year, with customers spending less time on each page than ever. In 2019, for instance, average time spent per page decreased more than 8% on the previous year.[1] Merchants therefore have a narrower window in which to drive sales.
Offering a range of retail finance options will provide a crucial point of differentiation for merchants in this competitive market. Multi-lender platforms, for example, facilitate financial sales in which the most suitable lender is found for each buyer, giving them the confidence to follow through with their desired purchases rather than forcing them down the dead-end of basket abandonment.
Rigidity costs consumers
These more agile approaches to checkout finance go much further than typical “buy now, pay later” products, which can tend either to support only limited purchases, approved by only one lender. Both situations can be avoided by providing more flexible products which help to increase customer confidence while ensuring that they can say “yes” to their Black Friday buys safely. Recent case studies have proven that sales can be lifted by up to 26% through utilising a multi lender platform.
The best retail finance arrangements are built on financial security as well as freedom. Deko’s product determines customers’ financial eligibility in seconds, matches them to a lender from its pool of different providers, and allows them to browse with the confidence that they have secured credit and are able to make the purchase.
Learning lessons is vital
Having imported traditions such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday from the US, UK merchants should look globally for the next major retail trend. With China’s version of Cyber Monday, Singles Day, set to be the next big import, consumer shopping days such as these have exploded in importance in recent years, more than doubling in size in the five years to 2019.[2] As a result, merchants should look to checkout finance as key to unlocking the full potential of these big-spending holidays.
Finally, no retailer should be in doubt about whether checkout finance is for them, particularly as the trend of digital transformation is already impacting businesses of all sizes. This even applies to Small Business Saturday, the lesser-known shopping day sandwiched between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. For all merchants, therefore, flexing up their retail finance options will help them capitalise on the festive shopping period.
And with 55% of consumers planning to make this Christmas the biggest yet,[3] sellers of all sizes should see flexible retail finance as the next way to upgrade their offerings, to help drive their customers from browsing to basket and prevent cart abandonment.
[1] https://www.nosto.com/blog/black-friday-statistics/
[2] https://www.fitchratings.com/research/corporate-finance/the-rise-of-consumer-finance-in-china-to-bolster-consumption-28-01-2021
[3] https://ppa.co.uk/article/future-plc-forecasts-spending-boost-on-bumper-black-friday
The article discusses the importance of checkout finance for boosting sales during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Flexible options increase customer confidence and reduce cart abandonment, leading to higher sales.
These platforms match buyers with suitable lenders, increasing the likelihood of completed purchases.
Explore more articles in the Business category
