Holiday Trends
Resilient Payments Ensure Holiday Success
A resilient payment system ensures you capture every sale and maintain customer trust throughout the busiest shopping season of the year.
During the holiday rush, every second at checkout counts and no sale should be lost because of a failing payment system. Picture Black Friday morning: eager shoppers line up in-store and flood online carts with orders.
Source: Holiday Trends: Moneris’ Tips for SMBs in 2025
Surges in holiday sales put payment systems to the test
Seasonal sales spikes can overwhelm technology that works fine the rest of the year. Black Friday was the busiest day of the 2024 shopping season in Canada, reclaiming its spot after years when last-minute Christmas shopping took the crown. For businesses, that meant a tidal wave of transactions concentrated in a few hours. If your payment terminals slow down or your e-commerce site crashes under the traffic, customers won’t wait – they’ll walk out or abandon their carts. These peak days truly put your payment system to the test. Every lag at the register or error message online risks losing a ready-to-buy customer. And it’s not just Black Friday; the weekend before Christmas (December 23rd and 20th) in 2024 each racked up almost as many sales as Black Friday itself. The holiday season brings multiple “mini-Black Fridays” of intense activity. A payment system needs to scale effortlessly to handle sudden surges in volume. When hundreds of shoppers all decide to check out at once, you want confidence that each tap, swipe or click will go through quickly and no customer leaves empty-handed.
Resilient payment infrastructure prevents holiday downtime
A robust payment infrastructure is the backbone that keeps sales flowing when it matters most. The flip side of huge holiday demand is the risk of downtime – and the cost of an outage during peak hours is devastating. An infamous example is one retailer that reportedly lost $775,000 in sales in just five hours when its site went down on Black Friday. Industry estimates put the average cost of downtime around $5,600 per minute, and it only climbs higher for large enterprises. In short, holiday downtime is not an option for any business that wants to capitalize on the season.
Preventing outages starts with resilient infrastructure. This means having payment systems that can handle extreme transaction loads without faltering – leveraging cloud-based scaling, backup servers, and network redundancies so there’s no single point of failure. It also means rigorous load testing well before the holidays, to fix any weak links in your checkout process. If one component does fail, a resilient setup has failovers in place to keep you processing sales. The goal is simple: no customer ever hears “Sorry, our payment system is down.” By investing in a sturdy, scalable payment platform, you ensure your checkout stays live and fast even under record-breaking traffic. The result is peace of mind for you and frictionless experiences for shoppers, with zero lost sales due to technical issues.
Spikes in seasonal fraud make security non-negotiable
The holiday spike in shopping doesn’t just attract customers – it attracts fraudsters too. When transaction counts soar, so do attempts at credit card fraud, phishing, and other scams. In fact, studies show fraudulent activity jumps by about 30 per cent during the peak holiday season.
Source: Fraud attempts rise 30% during the holidays
Busy merchants and overwhelmed staff may find it harder to spot suspicious transactions amid the frenzy. Meanwhile, criminals see an opportunity, knowing that businesses are laser-focused on speed and volume. The cost of a fraud incident can be steep – not only in lost merchandise or chargebacks, but also in damage to your reputation if customers fall victim. Shoppers are increasingly concerned about security; many will avoid retailers they perceive as risky. One survey found that a data breach would drive about two-thirds of customers to stop shopping with a retailer altogether. In short, security is not optional during the holidays – it’s an absolute must-have to protect your revenue and your customer relationships.
Some best practices to protect your business during the holiday transaction surge include:
- Monitor transactions closely: Keep an eye out for unusual activity, such as abnormally large purchases or repeated declines, and investigate anything that looks off.
- Avoid insecure payment methods: Don’t accept sensitive card details via phone or email, as these channels lack protection. Sticking to secure, PCI-compliant processes (like chip-and-PIN or secure online checkout forms) closes common loopholes.
- Display clear return policies: Make your refund and return terms highly visible. Informed customers are less likely to initiate “friendly fraud” chargebacks because they understand the proper channels.
- Use secure payment solutions with fraud tools: Enable features like AVS (Address Verification Service), CVV matching, and real-time fraud detection filters. Modern platforms can automatically flag suspicious orders or require extra verification on risky transactions.
- Stay vigilant about scams: Educate your team about holiday phishing emails or social engineering attempts targeting businesses. For example, be cautious with any unusual requests for customer info or terminal reconfiguration. An alert staff can be the last line of defense against fraud.
By treating security as a priority even amid the rush, you safeguard your holiday revenue. Tight fraud controls and secure payment solutions not only prevent direct losses – they also reassure customers that it’s safe to shop with you, bolstering trust in your brand during the most important sales season.
Shoppers expect smooth payments both online and in-store
Could slow checkouts be costing you holiday sales? Today’s customers have grown used to fast, hassle-free payments, and their expectations don’t drop just because your store is busy. In fact, during the holidays shoppers become even less patient – if one store has long lines or clunky checkout steps, consumers know plenty of alternatives are available. Online, nearly 18 per cent of customers have abandoned an order due to a lengthy or complicated checkout process.
Source: [2025] Cart Abandonment Rate Statistics
That means nearly one in five potential sales can evaporate simply because the payment process wasn’t smooth enough. In-store, the same principle applies: nobody enjoys waiting forever while a card reader struggles to connect or a cashier manually types in information. Shoppers are also carrying less cash these days, expecting tap-and-go convenience for even small purchases. A slowdown or a “cash only” sign on a busy day is enough to make them walk out and possibly never return.
Beyond speed, consistency across channels is key. Customers often hop between online and physical shopping during the season – browsing online, buying in person or vice versa. They expect the payment experience to be seamless in both cases. If your website offers one-click payments or digital wallet options but your store only accepts chip cards (or vice versa), that disconnect is jarring. Modern consumers want to use their preferred payment methods wherever they shop. For example, 67 per cent of millennials prefer to pay with digital wallets for the convenience and faster checkout.
Source: [2025] Cart Abandonment Rate Statistics
Ensuring you accept contactless cards, mobile wallet payments (like Apple Pay or Google Pay), and even emerging options like buy-now-pay-later in all sales channels will meet these expectations. A smooth payment experience, whether online or in-store, means quick transactions, multiple payment choices, and no surprises or extra hurdles. When you deliver that, you keep holiday shoppers moving happily along – and prevent lost sales from those who refuse to stick around for a cumbersome checkout.
Unified payment solutions keep holiday sales seamless
Are inconsistent online and in-store payments driving customers away? If your various sales channels feel disconnected, they probably are. Juggling one system for the register and another for the website can lead to errors, inventory headaches, and a fragmented customer experience. Imagine a shopper sees an item online and comes to your store to buy it, only to find the pricing or availability doesn’t match – or they can’t redeem the gift card they bought in-store on your website. These inconsistencies frustrate customers and can derail sales at the worst possible time. Unified payment solutions offer a way to keep everything seamless. By integrating in-store and e-commerce payments into one platform, you ensure that sales, inventory, and customer data all sync up in real time. That means a product sold online is instantly reflected in the store’s stock counts, and vice versa, preventing those “out-of-stock” disappointments. It also enables conveniences like buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS) or easy cross-channel returns, which shoppers appreciate during the busy season.
From the merchant’s perspective, a unified system simplifies operations when you can least afford mistakes. Your reports aren’t siloed by channel, so you can get a full picture of your holiday performance in one place. Training seasonal staff is easier, since there’s a consistent process for every transaction. And customers get a consistent experience with your brand: the receipt they get via email for an online order looks and feels like the one from your cash register. Technology is even making physical and digital payments converge – for instance, Tap to Pay on iPhone with the Moneris Go app now lets businesses accept contactless cards with just a phone, no extra hardware needed. It’s all about reducing friction. By adopting a unified commerce approach, you can keep your holiday sales running seamlessly, regardless of how or where your customers choose to pay. Ultimately, you’ll achieve higher conversion rates and happier customers who appreciate the convenience of a truly integrated shopping experience.
Payment data unlocks peak season opportunities
The transaction data flowing through your business during the holidays is more than just numbers–it’s a treasure trove of insights. When used smartly, payment data can reveal opportunities to boost your success during peak season and beyond. Here are a few ways to turn your holiday payment data into actionable strategies:
Spotting holiday sales trends
Every swipe or click tells a story about customer behaviour. By analyzing which days and hours see the heaviest sales, you can identify your true peak periods. You might discover, for example, that the Saturday two weeks before Christmas sees a bigger rush than you anticipated, or that weekday evenings in December steadily rival weekend afternoons. Knowing these trends allows you to be proactive – scheduling special promotions or ensuring extra staff are on hand during surprise peak windows. Data can also highlight hot products or categories that spike during the season, informing your merchandising. If sales reports show that electronics are selling twice as fast as apparel in early December, you can allocate inventory (and marketing effort) accordingly. Essentially, your payment data helps you zero in on what’s driving holiday sales, so you can double down on what works. Patterns that aren’t obvious in the moment become clear when you review the numbers, giving you an edge in adapting your tactics mid-season or planning for next year.
Optimizing inventory and staffing
No business wants to run out of a bestseller on Black Friday, or conversely, overstock items that don’t move. Payment data can guide better inventory decisions by revealing precisely what sells and when. Armed with last year’s transaction counts and values, you can forecast demand for key products on crucial dates. For example, if you see that December 23rd sales were 93 per cent of Black Friday’s volume, it’s a signal to stock up nearly as much for that date.
Source: Holiday Shopping Season 2024 Round Up: Black Friday Makes a Comeback, Reveals Moneris Data
This data-driven approach prevents the loss of sales due to stockouts and the wasted cost of excess. Similarly, understanding the ebb and flow of transaction volume helps with staffing optimization. You’ll know which days have sustained checkout lines and when things taper off, allowing you to allocate employee hours efficiently. Many modern payment platforms include reporting tools that make this easy–you can leverage reporting to pinpoint peak times and plan accordingly. The result is a well-oiled operation that meets demand without scrambling. In an intense holiday stretch, using data to align inventory and staffing with actual sales patterns can be the difference between a smooth operation and a scramble in the stockroom.
Personalizing promotions and loyalty
Another opportunity hidden in your payment data is deeper customer insight. By looking at who is buying and what they’re buying, you can tailor your marketing to make each customer feel understood – and encourage them to spend more. For instance, your data might show a segment of customers who repeatedly purchase kids’ toys every December. With that knowledge, you could target them with a pre-holiday email showcasing new toys or offering a loyalty discount on children’s products. Similarly, if you identify high-value repeat customers from their spending data, you can roll out the red carpet for them (special thank-you offers, early access to sales, etc.) to reinforce their loyalty. Secure payment records can even help verify which shoppers prefer which payment methods, informing how you promote new options. Perhaps a large chunk of your online customers uses digital wallets–you might then highlight the availability of Apple Pay in your store signage. The key is that by mining your payment data, you’re able to personalize the customer experience. Promotions feel more relevant, and loyalty programs can be tuned to what customers actually buy and value. During the holidays, when every retailer is vying for attention, this personalization helps your messaging cut through the noise and resonate with shoppers – driving incremental sales and building goodwill that lasts long after the season ends.
Dedicated local support keeps your business running during peak times
Even with the best systems in place, glitches can happen – especially under intense holiday pressure. What matters is having reliable support on standby to resolve issues quickly and keep your business running. Picture a scenario where your card terminals start erroring out on Boxing Day, or an online payment gateway shows an odd glitch during a Cyber Monday evening sale. In those moments, waiting on hold for generic customer service is the last thing you need. This is where dedicated local support becomes a lifeline. Access to a support team that understands your region, possibly even your business, can dramatically shorten downtime. They know Canadian payment networks, holiday nuances like differing provincial holidays, and they operate in your time zone. When a problem arises at 8 PM EST during a flash sale, you get someone who’s alert and ready, not a skeleton crew halfway around the world. Quick troubleshooting or replacement of faulty equipment can turn what might have been hours of lost sales into a minor blip. Essentially, strong support ensures that small issues stay small, never escalating into full-blown outages that derail your day’s revenue.
Local support isn’t just about fixing things when they break; it’s also about guiding you through the holiday maze. A true payment partner will proactively help you prepare – from answering questions about adding new POS devices for pop-up kiosks, to advising on software updates or security checks before the season starts. And if you need to adjust on the fly, say enabling an additional payment method mid-December or increasing your e-commerce capacity, having a knowledgeable team you can reach out to is invaluable. The holidays don’t wait for anyone, and neither will customers, so the ability to get swift, expert help 24/7 is a competitive advantage. It gives you confidence that no matter what curveballs come (be it a sudden tech hiccup or a wave of new shoppers), you won’t face them alone. In the end, dedicated support means you can focus on serving your customers and making sales, knowing that if any payment issues arise, they’ll be handled promptly by people who genuinely understand your business needs.
Moneris powers resilient holiday payments for Canadian businesses
Extending the importance of local support and reliability, Moneris stands out as a payment partner committed to Canadian merchants’ success during the holiday rush. We know that during peak shopping days, you shouldn’t be worrying about whether a transaction will go through – and our platform is built to ensure you never have to. Moneris offers the scalable infrastructure to handle Canada’s busiest sales events without a hitch, backed by robust security measures that safeguard every swipe and tap. From Black Friday morning's doorbusters to late-night online orders on Cyber Monday, our systems process high volumes swiftly, ensuring that your customers experience fast and seamless checkouts. And if an issue ever does arise, our 24/7 bilingual support team is right here in Canada, ready to resolve it and keep your business moving.
Being “powered by Moneris” means you have more than just a payment processor – you have a collaborator in creating great customer experiences. Our solutions unify in-store and online payments under one roof, simplifying operations and giving you a complete view of your holiday sales across channels. That consistency delights shoppers and makes life easier for you, especially when things get frantic. We also equip you with secure payment solutions featuring built-in fraud prevention tools, so you can confidently expand your sales knowing we’re helping to protect your revenue and customers. Moneris prides itself on reliability and innovation grounded in Canadian commerce needs. When the holiday season hits full stride, we shoulder the payment complexities in the background. This frees you and your team to focus on what you do best–serving customers, selling products, and making the most of every opportunity the season brings. With Moneris as your partner, resilient payments become one less worry on your plate, and you can enter the busiest time of year with the confidence that your transactions will be seamless, secure, and fully supported from start to finish.
FAQs
Key takeaway
- Holiday payment resilience ensures no sale is lost during busy shopping periods.
- Reliable infrastructure and proactive maintenance prevent downtime at critical moments.
- Secure payment systems with fraud prevention tools protect revenue and customer trust.
- Unified and frictionless payment experiences keep customers engaged across every channel.
- Local support provides confidence and continuity when your business faces seasonal pressure.
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