Black Friday presents a golden opportunity for e-commerce merchants across Africa. Yet all too often the biggest losses happen at the finish line: the checkout. Below, we explore five critical mistakes that could kill your Black Friday sales — and how SeerBit’s Checkout and Discount solutions help you turn that risk into revenue.
During Black Friday campaigns your marketing spend drives high traffic, but getting customers to the checkout is only half the battle — converting them is what matters. African shoppers expect speed, simplicity and value. A friction-filled experience at checkout can turn a promising "add to cart" into an abandoned sale.
Consider the data: globally, the average cart abandonment rate hovers around 70 %. In Africa, the figure is even higher — around 85 %. In Nigeria and Kenya, the cart abandonment rate is significantly higher at 90.5%, while South Africa is 83.5%, according to ECDB.
When you’re deep in the pressure cooker of Black Friday, every second and every friction point counts. One extra step, one glitchy mobile form, one missing payment option — and you lose a sale.
That’s why a seamless checkout experience is a must. The difference between “add to cart” and “checkout complete” lies in speed, clarity and trust.
One of the most common killers: a slow, bloated or overly complex checkout flow. Multi-step forms, page reloads, hidden fields or forcing account creation all increase friction and raise the chance of abandonment.
Research in South Africa found that organisational issues and security concerns had statistically significant impact on cart abandonment. And globally in e-commerce, nearly half of abandoned carts are attributed to extra costs and surprise steps at checkout.
Fix with SeerBit:
SeerBit’s Checkout solution is built for speed and ease. It offers a mobile-optimised, single-step checkout that ensures minimal taps, no unnecessary reloads, and fast processing. For Black Friday, when traffic surges, that speed becomes a competitive advantage.
For African e-commerce merchants, ensuring that your checkout is friction-free, especially on mobile, is a must-have.
2. Limited Payment Options
A second big mistake: not offering the payment methods your customers use. In the African context, this is even more pronounced. If your preferred payment options don’t include local favourites (mobile money, USSD, bank transfers, cards), you risk losing the sale.
In Africa, the e-commerce market is forecast to grow strongly, with vast numbers of mobile-first shoppers. But many businesses still rely on traditional payment rails that don’t fit the local reality.
Fix with SeerBit:
SeerBit supports cards, transfers, mobile money, and other payment options across Africa — enabling you to meet your customers where they are. By removing the payment-barrier you reduce one of the most common abandonments triggers and open the door to higher conversion during the Black Friday rush.
If your checkout only accepts one or two methods, you’re leaving revenue on the table.
3. Ignoring Discounts and Promotions
Black Friday is built on expectation: big deals, urgency, value. Neglecting discount strategy, or managing it manually and inefficiently is another mistake you should avoid. Without compelling offers, or with inconsistent discount application, you risk lower traffic, weak conversion and disappointed customers.
Fix with SeerBit:
SeerBit’s Discount Feature allows you to configure and apply rich, tailored offers: percentage discounts, fixed-value reductions, category-specific deals or customer-segment promotions. All within your payment platform — no extra tools, no manual reconciliation.
Such flexibility means you can build Black Friday campaigns that speak to African shoppers — who are often price-sensitive, value-driven and mobile-first. By aligning your promo strategy with the checkout flow, you maximise your chances of turning that cart into a sale.
4. Manual Reconciliation and Payment Delays
During peak sale days, delays in payment confirmation or manual reconciliation processes can kill momentum. Customers may wonder if their payment went through, fulfilment gets delayed, trust erodes — and a sale turns into a refund or a lost future customer. This inconvenience is often linked to a high cart abandonment rate.
Fix with SeerBit:
SeerBit offers instant payment confirmation and automated reconciliation across channels. That means once the customer pays, your system reflects real-time status, you can fulfil faster, and you build trust by avoiding “pending” payments and manual back-and-forth. In a high-volume event like Black Friday, being on top of payment workflow can be the difference between a sale completed and a refund issued.
5. Poor Mobile Optimisation
In Africa, most shoppers now use their mobile devices. As of 2021, mobile shopping share in Kenya and Nigeria grew to 55% and 49% respectively. More broadly, the African smartphone market grew 24 % year-on-year in Q1 2024. This proves the increasing importance of mobile shopping, and optimising for mobile with responsive layout, one-click field, and mobile money integration helps you take advantage of this, so you don’t lose out on sales.
Fix with SeerBit:
SeerBit offers a mobile-first checkout experience designed to perform smoothly on all devices, including lower-end smartphones and slower networks (common scenario in parts of Africa). With mobile table stakes now built-in, you deliver the kind of high-conversion experience that Black Friday demands.
When you choose SeerBit for your checkout + discount stack, you’re choosing a platform built for the specifics of the African e-commerce environment.
With SeerBit, you get one integrated solution that addresses the checkout friction, payment-method gap, discount strategy and mobile-optimisation demands — all in one.
Here’s how you get ready:
Turn every Black Friday click into a confirmed sale. Power your store with SeerBit Checkout — fast, reliable, and now with a powerful Discount Feature that helps you convert more shoppers. Visit www.seerbit.com to get started.