Blog

Your Black Friday payments guide: How merchants can turn peak season into profit

Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) are the championship rounds of ecommerce. For merchants, it’s the moment when customer expectations, traffic spikes, and razor-thin margins collide. Marketing teams are busy optimizing discounts. Operations teams are scrambling to secure stock and delivery schedules.

But one thing often gets overlooked: payments.

If your checkout doesn’t deliver under pressure, you lose sales you’ve already fought to win. The stakes are high: in Europe, card failures and missing local payment methods are still among the top reasons for cart abandonment. And with fraud attempts surging during holiday shopping, the payments team needs to be as prepared as marketing and logistics.

Here’s your unique, step-by-step guide to winning the payments game this BFCM.

1. Anticipate customer behavior, before the weekend starts

Customer expectations shift every year. Shoppers expect faster checkout, more ways to pay, and zero interruptions. Smart merchants prepare by:

• Studying recent trends: Which local methods (iDEAL, Bancontact, BLIK) surged this year? Where is Open Banking adoption strongest?
• Identifying weak points: Did you lose sales last year because a payment method was missing, or because of system issues?
• Building a playbook: Go into BFCM knowing which countries and methods drive your highest conversions.

👉 Pro move: If you’re selling into Europe, one integration with DPMax our Open Banking platform gives you 100% EU bank coverage. That means less guesswork and fewer gaps.

2. Prepare your checkout for traffic like never before

Black Friday traffic isn’t just “a little more.” For many merchants, it’s 5–10x higher than average. If your checkout buckles, the weekend is lost.

• Load test your payments across desktop and mobile.
• Check routing resilience -  what happens if a bank is down? We’ve got you covered with DPMax we guarantee a 100% approval rate.
• Cut every extra step -  fewer clicks = higher conversion.

👉 With DPMax’s smart routing and fallback systems, no single bank outage can stop your sales.

3. Rethink your payment mix

Cards are still dominant, but in Europe, local methods and Pay by Bank are winning the checkout battle. Why?

• Customers trust familiar methods.
• Cards bring higher fees (2-4%) and fraud risks.
• Bank payments are instant, secure, and chargeback-free.

Merchants who only rely on cards during BFCM risk higher declines and lower margins. Offering multiple trusted options keeps carts moving.

4. Secure your revenue against fraud and chargebacks

Holiday promotions are like honey to fraudsters. Card fraud and chargebacks spike during November and December.

• Tighten your fraud rules ahead of the weekend.
• Make sure 3DS / SCA compliance is rock solid.
• Where possible, push customers toward chargeback-free methods like Pay by Bank by labelling it “recommended” at checkout.

👉 With Open Banking, every transaction is SCA-secured, reducing fraud risk without extra friction for the shopper.

5. Plan for cash flow in real time

BFCM generates massive order volumes, but what happens if your money doesn’t arrive for days?

• Card settlements can take 2–3 days, sometimes longer when volume is high.
• Bank transfers settle instantly or same-day, helping you restock and ship faster.
• The sooner you have funds, the sooner you can scale marketing campaigns during the weekend itself.

👉 Merchants offering DPMax enjoy faster settlements, turning revenue into liquidity when it matters most.

6. Keep refunds & returns simple

Shoppers are wary during BFCM. If your returns policy is confusing, they’re more likely to abandon.

• Make refunds easy to find on your site.
• Communicate refund times clearly at checkout.
• Where possible, automate refunds for speed.

👉 A clear refund policy isn’t just compliance -  it’s a trust signal that turns hesitant shoppers into buyers.

7. Monitor live data, not just post-mortems

Too many merchants only review payment performance after the season. By then, it’s too late.

• Set up real-time dashboards in our system for approval rates, drop-offs, and settlement speeds.
• Track performance by method, geography, and device type.
• Assign staff to monitor and act on anomalies in real time.

👉 DPMax’s merchant tools give you visibility over sales, settlements, and all important  information -  so you can react instantly, not weeks later.

8. Don’t stop at Monday: plan your debrief

Once the dust settles, the insights you capture will set you up for 2026.

• Which payment methods drove the highest conversions?
• Where did fraud attempts occur?

Build your learnings into next year’s strategy - before January sales even begin.

The bottom line

Black Friday / Cyber Monday is about speed, trust, and scale. Merchants who prepare their payment infrastructure,  not just their discounts - will keep more revenue, serve more customers, and build loyalty long after the weekend ends.

With Alternative Payments, you can:
✔ Cover 100% of EU banks in one integration
✔ Reduce fees compared to cards
✔ Eliminate chargebacks with Pay by Bank

This BFCM, don’t let payments be your weak spot. Turn your checkout into your competitive advantage.