South African business have begun preparing for what looks to be another bumper Black Friday trading day, with sales predicted to be up 30 percent from last year, online largest payment service provider PayGate said.

South Africa has like several other countries adopted "Black Friday", the informal name for the day after Thanksgiving in the United States which marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. This year, it will fall on November 29.

Data from retail tracker Black Friday Global shows interest in Black Friday deals in South Africa has grown by 9,900 percent over the past five years, PayGate said in a statement on Tuesday.

"PayGate’s tracking of payments for Black Friday, meanwhile, shows the number of transactions doubling every year for the past three years, and payment clearing house BankservAfrica says it saw a 55 percent growth in transactions in 2018 compared to the previous year," it said.

"PayGate expects 2019 Black Friday transactions to grow by 30 percent this year."

It however said South Africa's e-commerce growth was generally coming off a very low base, having really taken off only in the past three years or so.

The company said it had processes some 64 percent of Black Friday transactions last year, and expected this to rise to as much as 70 percent in 2019.

South African business have begun preparing for what looks to be another bumper Black Friday trading day, with sales predicted to be up 30 percent from last year, online largest payment service provider PayGate said on Tuesday.

- African News Agency (ANA) 

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