Dive Brief:

• E-commerce transactions surged 15% during the start of holiday shopping between Friday and Monday, compared to the same period last year, said payments software company ACI Worldwide, basing the figure on millions of transactions on its system. That included a 20% increase on what is known as Black Friday and a 12% increase on Cyber Monday, ACI said in an email regarding the statistics sent to Payments Dive Wednesday.
• Buy now-pay later (BNPL) transactions increased significantly as a part of that holiday shopping activity, with the value of the transactions jumping 87% and the number of transactions rising 31%, ACI said. 
• More activity happened on mobile devices, ACI said, noting a 17% increase in that transaction volume over the weekend, including a 43% increase on Monday.

Dive Insight:

The data from ACI underscores increases in holiday shopping reported elsewhere, despite predictions that higher inflation and other economic hurdles, including higher interest rates, might take a toll on purchasing this year. 

Data from research firm Adobe Analytics also showed an online spending increase for Black Friday this year, showing a 2.3% over last year to $9.12 billion, despite gloomy forecasts. Cyber Monday brought in a record $11.3 billion, marking 5.8% growth over last year, according to Adobe Analytics.

E-commerce transactions for gaming devices and equipment as well as travel showed big increases over last year, with transaction dollars for the former more than doubling and for the latter rising 57%, ACI reported. ACI didn't immediately respond to a request to provide additional information on the underlying transaction count and dollars spent.

BNPL options, a rising payments trend for consumers worldwide, may be playing an instrumental role in letting shoppers stretch their dollars because it allows them to pay for purchases in installments, typically interest-free and without fees as long as they make their payments on time.

Afterpay, a major provider of BNPL services alongside Affirm and Klarna, also logged an increase in consumers tapping the BNPL option over the weekend. 

Adobe charted an increase in BNPL, too, for what it calls Cyber Week, from Thursday through Monday, with BNPL orders climbing 85% relative to the week prior and BNPL revenue rising 88%.