Restaurants benefited from bargain-hungry consumers on “Black Friday” when spending growth as tracked by credit and debit card purchases surged back to pre-recession levels, according to First Data’s “SpendTrend: Black Friday” report.
The Atlanta-based global payment processor said card spending grew 9.6 percent at restaurants on Nov. 26 — the Black Friday shopping holiday when retailers offer their most aggressive deals of the year — compared with the day after Thanksgiving a year earlier.
That result contributed to a 12.3-percent increase in overall dollar volume across all industries. Dollar-volume growth on debit and credit cards was 4.8 percent on Black Friday a year earlier.
A 1.9-percent increase in the average ticket for debit and credit card transactions across all industries also helped to fuel overall growth on Black Friday.
Among the restaurants to feature special deals for the busiest shopping day of the year was Morton’s The Steakhouse, which offered a free dessert to customers who purchased an entrée and mentioned to their servers that they were fans of the upscale steakhouse brand on Facebook.
Black Friday also was the last day that Burger King offered a free Seattle’s Best Coffee, as it had done several Fridays prior. Bob Evans offered a free slice of pumpkin pie all weekend via a printable coupon e-mailed to its loyalty club members.
First Data is a global technology and payment processing firm, which services more than 5 million merchant locations, more than 2,000 credit and debit card issuers, and millions of consumers worldwide.
Contact Mark Brandau at [email protected].
