Mobile payment provider, Square, has unveiled spending data on the millions of sales made by Square businesses across Australia from this time last year to determine the most popular trading days and the time of day people spend the most.
As expected, in the three months leading up to Christmas, business turnover increases significantly, when compared to the average sales of any other month. In 2018, revenue across Square sellers increased 25% in October, 46% in November and 48% in December, which saw sales at their peak.
Last year, retail businesses experienced much heavier weekend trade increasing through the month of November, culminating with the biggest national retail trading day the first weekend of December, on Saturday 1 December 2018, with sales hitting their peak at 12 noon.
While December generally saw much higher trade throughout the month, volume spiked significantly on weekends, particularly on Saturdays. State by state the busiest days also varied, with Queenslanders enjoying their shopping peak a whole month earlier than Canberrans.
Square Australia business success lead, Chris Rich said these data insights are extremely valuable in helping businesses make better, more informed decisions about how to prepare inventory, optimise resourcing and marketing to maximise sales.
“As Australian consumers are increasingly opting for cashless methods as their preferred method of payment, the opportunity for business owners to work smarter and capitalise on the vast amounts of data that’s available to them is becoming much greater too,” he told Retailbiz.
“Card payments enable business owners to gain insights that they can use at this time of year to prepare for their busiest trading days – by making sure they have enough staff on hand, for example.”