Black Friday Cyber Monday 2025: Signals, shifts, and what merchants should prepare for next

What BFCM 2025 tells us about the future of peak shopping

Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) 2025 saw record-breaking transaction and TPV volumes, pushing their impact well beyond a single weekend. These peak events now drive growth for the entire Q4, and our data reflects the trend, with 88% YoY TPV growth recorded during the period.

This year’s BFCM numbers show growth isn’t just about attracting crowds anymore. What happens after the click matters: the right local payment methods, flexible payment options, and reliable infrastructure, especially as websites and apps were pushed to their limits.

Merchants who adapted quickly and kept the checkout experience familiar for shoppers saw the biggest gains, setting apart those who capitalized on demand from those who only captured traffic.

The payment trends that defined this year’s BFCM

Local payment methods keep gaining ground

BFCM saw year-on-year growth across cards and local payment methods in both transactions and users, with Alternative Payment Methods (APMs) growing at a higher rate, +76.5% YoY in transactions and +52.5% YoY in users.

That gap isn’t a one-off, it’s a strong signal that consumer preferences are moving toward local, low-friction ways of paying. These methods are familiar, and for many shoppers, they’re the only accessible entry point into eCommerce. During high-pressure shopping windows, APMs drive the biggest share of incremental conversions.

Across Latin America's key markets, three alternative payment methods emerged as the undisputed champions of the weekend, with Brazil's Pix, Mexico's OXXO, and Colombia's PSE driving unprecedented transaction volumes. In this space, Pix dominated, with 130% YoY TPV growth, showing how firmly instant payments sit at the core of everyday spending in Brazil.

Local cards followed a similar upward pattern. Verve in Nigeria captured 36% of TPV over BFCM, reinforcing the rise of domestic schemes across emerging markets.

Buy Now, Pay Later grows well beyond traditional installments

BNPL was one of the strongest climbers in this year’s BFCM cycle, representing around 22.5% of all installment-type transactions, a clear gain in share. Part of this comes down to access: traditional credit remains limited across emerging markets, and during peak shopping periods, BNPL becomes an easy decision for shoppers seeking breathing room.

This trend showed up strongly across regions. South Africa led much of the BNPL momentum, while in LATAM, traditional installments continue to play a central role, especially in markets like Brazil, Colombia, and Chile. In Brazil, retail transactions using installments reached 58% during BFCM. Merchants offering flexible payment options ultimately see more completed checkouts and stay closer to how consumers want to pay.

Mobile takes the lead in checkout behavior

Mobile continues to anchor how people pay across emerging markets: from Africa’s mobile money to Southeast Asia’s eWallets and LatAm’s QR-driven instant payment rails, mobile channels remain the most reliable entry point to eCommerce.

In markets where banking infrastructure is uneven, mobile is the payment infrastructure itself. During peak shopping periods, this mobile-first reality becomes even more visible, as shoppers choose payment flows that feel quick, familiar, and fully embedded in their phones.

Regional signals: growth on the fast track

This year’s BFCM cycle showed a clear direction: emerging markets are driving the fastest transaction growth. Brazil, South Africa, Colombia, Mexico, and Argentina saw the biggest YoY growth, with some clear indications of how payment behavior is shifting:

• Brazil led LATAM with Pix at the center. 43% of transactions ran through local payment methods, showing how widely adopted fast, low-friction payments have become.
• South Africa had the highest growth YoY in terms of transaction volume. Although it remains a card-first market, APMs are starting to have a notable presence. BNPL accounted for 67% of APM payments during BFCM, with Payflex as the top provider.
• Mexico grew strongly thanks to local payment methods like OXXO. 12.9% of BFCM transactions used APMs, showing consumers’ growing preference for alternatives to traditional cards.

The takeaway for merchants is clear: peak events like BFCM increasingly favor flexible, familiar, and local payment options.

What to focus on for the year ahead

Our results for Black Friday and Cyber Monday offer a clear roadmap to build resilience and capture growth across emerging markets in the coming year. Based on our analysis, three core pillars will define success for global merchants:

• Localize your payment stack: Offering a suite of local payment methods is no longer a competitive advantage, but a requirement. Consumers expect to pay with the methods they know and trust. Failing to provide these options introduces friction at the most critical point of the customer journey, leading directly to abandoned carts and lost revenue. Operating in Brazil without Pix, in Mexico without OXXO, or ignoring the rise of local BNPL is the same as walking away from revenue.
• Maximize payment approval rates: Every incorrectly declined transaction is lost revenue and a poor customer experience. Reducing these false declines starts with strong fraud management and a clear understanding of issuer behavior in each market. Processing payments locally—and routing them through the most relevant domestic channels—helps increase approval rates because issuers tend to trust familiar, in-market signals.
• Master mobile checkout performance: Mobile continues its dominance in transaction volume, making the mobile checkout experience a non-negotiable priority. Success depends on creating a fast, intuitive, and seamless process from start to finish. As mobile tech advances, incorporating features like biometric authentication for popular payment methods can turn a potential obstacle into a competitive differentiator.

Key takeaways

Once again, BFCM insights showed that strong results come from year-round preparation and a deep understanding of how consumers pay. Looking beyond BFCM, the merchants who win will localize, maximize approvals, and perfect mobile-first checkouts. With dLocal as your partner, you can drive expansion and innovation across emerging markets—powering end-to-end payments with the right local methods, flexible options like BNPL, and resilient, in-market performance.

Together, we’ll turn complexity into conversion and help you scale with confidence.

Forward Looking Statements

This post contains certain forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements convey our current expectations or forecasts of future events. Forward-looking statements regarding dLocal involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performances or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Certain of these risks and uncertainties are described in our filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Unless required by law, we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect circumstances or events after the date hereof.