Every year, Black Friday and Cyber Monday set new records—not just in sales, but in the strain they put on retailers’ systems. In 2024, Stripe processed 465 million transactions worth $31 billion over Cyber Week, all while maintaining near-perfect uptime. That’s the scale retailers must prepare for.
For mid-market retailers, the challenge isn’t just driving more demand. It’s ensuring your ecommerce, POS, and fulfillment systems can keep up without overselling, crashing, or disappointing customers.
BFCM 2024 broke records across every market. In the United States, Cyber Monday alone generated $13.3 billion in sales. In Europe, ecommerce revenue during BFCM grew by more than 10% year over year. In Australia, November retail turnover rose nearly 1%, the strongest monthly increase of the year.
All that volume adds up to extreme traffic surges. Pages that load slowly or checkout flows that lag cost retailers millions in lost conversions.
The takeaway: downtime and slow performance aren’t minor inconveniences during BFCM—they’re deal breakers.
Peak sales create operational risks as big as any marketing challenge. Overselling happens when systems can’t update inventory in real time. Customers buy items that appear in stock, only to receive a cancellation notice later. Trust is damaged, and most shoppers don’t come back.
Stockouts are just as costly. A single out-of-stock product can send a customer to a competitor. Worse, it can trigger negative reviews that live on long after the holiday rush.
The takeaway: real-time inventory accuracy is one of the most valuable assets a retailer can have during BFCM.
Retailers who prepared for surges saw strong results in 2024. Stripe’s 465 million processed transactions prove it’s possible to scale without breaking—if the right infrastructure is in place.
In the United States, BOPIS (buy online, pick up in store) played a major role in absorbing traffic, with more than 65% of consumers using it monthly. Globally, the BOPIS market was worth more than $100 billion in 2024 and is projected to more than double in the next decade. In Australia, BOPIS and Click Frenzy promotions drove both online and in-store activity, helping retailers spread fulfillment across multiple channels.
The takeaway: scaling isn’t just about servers and checkout pages. It’s about distributing demand across every channel.
Enterprise giants have teams of engineers focused on scaling infrastructure for BFCM. Mid-market retailers, on the other hand, often juggle multiple systems that don’t sync well under pressure. The risk? Slow pages, inaccurate stock counts, and fulfillment bottlenecks that erode customer trust at the worst possible moment.
But mid-market doesn’t have to mean second best. With the right tools, these retailers can offer seamless, reliable experiences that rival the largest players—without enterprise-level budgets.
The takeaway: scaling is not a luxury for mid-market retailers; it’s survival.
Maropost gives mid-market retailers the ability to handle BFCM surges without breaking stride:
Centralized inventory management ensures accuracy across ecommerce and POS in real time.
Scalable infrastructure keeps sites running smoothly, even under peak demand.
Integrated order management distributes fulfillment across shipping, BOPIS, and in-store pickup.
Automated updates reduce the risk of overselling or canceled orders.
Marketing and commerce live in one system, so campaigns reflect true availability and customer demand.
With Maropost, mid-market retailers can compete at enterprise scale without enterprise complexity. Instead of fearing BFCM surges, they can embrace them—confident their systems will deliver.