How embedded insurance can add confidence to the chaos of Black Friday

The dust has long settled on Black Friday and 2024’s proved to be more popular than ever. 

According to Shopify, its merchants ‘hit a record $11.5 billion in sales over the Black Friday-Cyber Monday (BFCM) weekend—up 24% from last year with strong sales momentum leading up to the event.’ 

Black Friday is a time of intense pressure and promise for retailers. Their customers expect snap deals on top products and a seamless purchasing journey.

Insurers have an important role to play in the consumerist chaos of Black Friday. Amid the impulsiveness of purchases across this sales period and the online and offline mania, retailers have the opportunity to build confidence.

Retailers need to think beyond lower-value purchases to improve sales

Gone are the days when we could say Black Friday was a day of lower value, discount purchases. 

Electronics being a top category (49%)  in customers’ Black Friday baskets indicates that customers are also banking on that period to make important purchases. Consumer electronics and home appliances were also ranked among the top three best-performing categories during Black Friday in 2023. 

These are high-value, planned purchases but consumers will be making quick decisions on what they believe is the best deal. 

If retailers want to capitalise on this shift from low to high-value items, the imperative is to encourage this behaviour by creating more confidence around these higher-stakes transactions and offering protection. 

That’s where embedded insurance comes in – an increasingly popular fail-safe for customers making fast buying decisions through the integration of insurance offerings into the point of sale. 

The solution is embedded insurance, not just insurance

When the purchase process is made extremely easy and frictionless, customers may be more likely to make purchases, this also applies to high-value items. 

There is a growing appetite for integrating protection that improves the customer experience and offers an additional revenue stream for merchants. Approximately 73% of consumers now use multiple channels during their shopping journey and 64% expect a seamless experience across all channels – whether online shopping, mobile apps, or physical stores.

While insurance is the service, the aim is not just to offer this service, but to offer it seamlessly as part of the customer journey. Embedding insurance at the point of sale means customers never have to leave ecosystems to make yet another purchase and they can have peace of mind if anything goes wrong. 

While embedded insurance may seem like just an extra offering – for customers it’s a way to bring calm to the retail storm that is Black Friday.