Sinterklaas losing out to Black Friday | Christmas

Thanksgiving’s been and gone and we now find ourselves in the doldrums.

The calm before the storm, so to speak.

Checkout Pages at Payment Gateways and the Servers on which they’re hosted, have begun to cool down after the sustained and merciless payment processing, which took place this last Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Warehouses are beginning to empty of stock. Staff have finally caught up on the last of the online orders still pending shipping to customers, who’re eagerly awaiting that knock on the door, the ringing of the doorbell signaling the arrival of the brave men and women of the Postal Courier services, relentlessly battling the Autumn/Fall weather conditions, in order to fulfill their delivery quotas.

This break is a temporary one and don’t let it lull you into a false sense of tranquility. Soon the Christmas Holiday Season will be upon many of us, and we’re sure that the Seasonal Sales cycle is arriving earlier each year. Chris Rea – Driving Home For Christmas in early November anyone?

Men, women, fathers and mothers, gramps, grans, aunties and uncles, clutch their preferred online/mobile device and commence with the scouring of the internet for premier sales and bargains.

Marketing and Advertising gurus are doing the very best they can to entice us to visit and buy from that one particular website, just to do one initial payment transaction, or to hopefully entice and realize recurring payments from clients who will go back and visit to purchase again for the January sales offering.

All of this is made possible by Merchant Solutions; the ability to take Credit Card Payments and accept Alternative Payment methods, online in web shops, via the telephone, or even via cardless solutions.
The FinTech sector is booming and to us, remains fascinating, simply because we get to be part of the cycle, as defined above. Those involved in the Payments Industry – Gateways, Payment Service Providers, Acquiring Banks, are proud that their services are being utilized to process myriad payment transactions for all kinds of products and services. We spoke in a previous blog about the future looking bright for payment services. As it stands, 2018 is on course for being a record-breaking year, with Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales records confirmed as having been broken.
Christmas 2018 should again prove the cherry on top of the pie for Online Payment Processing and all those involved in Merchant Services.

In case we forget that in the Netherlands, Sinterklaas and his “Zwarte Pieten”, arrive by boat from Spain in the Netherlands, around this time of year. Although the tradition appears to be slightly on the wane, with fierce, red-velvet-cape wearing rival, Kris Kringle, (alternatively known as Santa Claus), usurping mitre rocking Sinterklaas, from his seat of Bearded power.
“The Sint” isn’t down for the count just yet.

Despite the apparent shift in power between immortal, Commanders in Gift-Giving Chiefs; the POS systems, cash tills | registers in Dutch Brick and Mortar stores, still ring merrily in the days running up to December 5th.

Dutch Shopping websites such as this one, are already gearing up for the Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet assault mere days after Cyber Monday. We’re sure that 2018 will be another record year for the number one Dutch Online Payment product Ideal, which works fantastically well and efficiently.

We expect no less from the Dutch though!


Stroopwafel anyone?

Speaking of Ideal. Any Online Merchant currently accepting Credit Cards, but selling to countries in Europe (or anywhere else for that matter) would do well to look for new and different ways in which to accept and take online payments, using local payment solutions. In the case of the Dutch market, Ideal acceptance is requisite. And that’s just to one of a range “online banking e-payments solutions”, currently found on the tip of the iceberg.

Adding a few of these Payment products to a checkout page, increases the Omnichannel Payments experience for Customers and will lead to them, all being well, tokenizing their recurring payment product and becoming regular Patrons.

Contact us for more information on payment methods ACPays

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