Acquirers Can Expect a Very Merry Christmas If Trends Hold

If the best present for a merchant acquirer is more transactions to process, 2011’s Christmas has already arrived. Various reports from acquirers, payment processors, and research firms indicate that electronic transaction volumes are up sharply over 2010’s levels despite the gloom that still colors most economic news.

Dallas-based Chase Paymentech, the leading acquirer for Internet merchants, so far is seeing a 40% increase in electronic-commerce transactions and a 26% increase in online charge volume over 2010 for the holiday season beginning Nov. 1. The data apply to 50 major e-commerce merchants tracked in the processor’s annual Cyber Holiday Pulse Index. Total transaction and dollar figures were not immediately available.

The big payment processor First Data Corp., meanwhile, says its SpendTrend Analysis for Black Friday, the Friday after Thanksgiving (Nov. 25), and Thanksgiving itself shows transactions grew 7.3% over 2010 and dollar volume rose 6.3%. SpendTrend monitors spending on credit, debit, and electronic benefits cards at Atlanta-based First Data’s merchants. And leading alternative-payments processor PayPal Inc. says that its global mobile-commerce volume for Cyber Monday (Nov. 28), the Monday after Thanksgiving that’s traditionally big for Web shopping, jumped 552% from 2010’s Cyber Monday.

The Chase Paymentech index posted year-over-year increases of 36% in transactions and 26% in sales on Black Friday. Company president and chief executive Mike Duffy tells Digital Transactions News that the season’s increases are spread across Chase Paymentech’s online merchant base. He attributes them to “consumer confidence, it’s easy to do, people understand it’s safe, [and a] general acceptance of the U.S. consumer going electronic.”

The index’s average ticket so far is down a bit, $45 as of Tuesday versus $52 for the equivalent day a year ago. According to Duffy, that’s the result of a greater number of lower-ticket transactions such as music downloads in the mix.

Internet analysis firm comScore Inc. estimates that U.S. consumers spent $15 billion in November’s first 28 days on online retail purchases, travel excluded, up 15% from $13 billion a year earlier. That’s good news for credit and debit card issuers and alternatives such as PayPal because cash’s presence on the Web is so small. Reston, Va.-based comScore pegged Cyber Monday’s volume at a record $1.25 billion, 22% higher than the previous record of $1.03 billion set only in 2010. Online shopping, however, actually grew faster on Black Friday, up 26% to $816 million from $648 million on 2010’s Black Friday.

Other companies besides PayPal noticed an uptick in mobile commerce. IBM Corp. said its research shows that transactions on mobile devices accounted for 6.6% of online retail sales on Cyber Monday, up from only 2.3% a year earlier.

The National Retail Federation estimates that a record 212 million shoppers visited stores and merchant Web sites over the Black Friday weekend and spent $52 billion. The average shopper spent $398.62 over the weekend, up 9% from $365.34 last year. The Washington, D.C.-based NRF bases its estimates on a survey of 3,826 consumers conducted for it by BIGresearch. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.6%.