Interac Predicts December 22nd To Be This Year’s Busiest Shopping Day

We are smack dab in the middle of the busiest shopping season of the year. However, according to Interac, we haven’t seen busy yet! Today, a press release announced that Interac foresees December 22nd as this year’s busiest shopping day. We suppose that makes sense. The 22nd is the last Friday before Christmas – and many last minute shoppers will, no doubt, be searching for gifts before the holiday weekend officially gets underway.

As Newswire.ca reports today, the data was released by Interac Association/Acxsys Corporation. “According to Interac\’s point-of-sale data, Canadians made over 24 million transactions and spent over $1.2 billion on Friday, December 23, 2016,” the report explains, “This made it the busiest shopping day of last year, beating out the busiest day of the year prior (December 23, 2015) by 19 percent in the total amount spent.”

With that in mind, Interac figured that Friday, December 22, 2017 is primed to be the busiest shopping day of the year, bringing in an expected 25 million debit transactions. The Newswire report also notes that a recent Hill + Knowlton Strategies online survey that was commissioned by Interac found that 68 percent of Canadian shoppers dislike crowded stores and malls. Thanks to their time-saving natures, debit payments are growing in popularity.

Martin Ho is the Head of Core Products at Interac. “We\’ve seen tremendous adoption of our contactless debit product, Interac Flash as Canadians used Flash more than 1.5 billion times this year, up 80% from last year,” the reports quotes him as saying, “It\’s clear consumers and businesses are taking advantage of the convenience and speed of Interac Flash to get through checkout lines faster. With the holidays here, Interac Flash and Interac Debit keeps Canadians on track with holiday spending because you are using your own money.”

Consumers love having zero liability.

Another factor making Interac cards so desirable is that their users are protected by the association’s Zero Liability Policy. Card users are not responsible for losses that are beyond their control. In other words, if cards are lost or stolen and used for fraudulent purchases, their legitimate owners do not have to pay for the charges.

In addition, Interac has taken things a step further in recent months. They have now enabled uses of mobile banking apps to request funds from friends and family members via e-transfer. “The new Interac e-Transfer® Request Money feature allows customers of participating financial institutions to send a request for funds directly from their online or mobile banking app, and have the funds deposited directly into their account when the request is fulfilled,” explains Newswire.ca.

Do you allow your customers to pay for purchases with their Interac cards?

If not, you are undoubtedly missing out on a ton of sales! Let’s make this holiday season the one when you enjoy your highest sales numbers yet. It’s not too late to make use of Canadian POS Corporation’s fantastic Countertop and Wireless POS terminals which will allow you to safely and securely accept all credit cards and debit cards.

For more information, call Canadian POS Corporation at 1-877-748-2884 or email us at info@localhost.