Black Friday is no longer just a U.S. shopping day. Israelis have embraced the consumerist holiday wholeheartedly with businesses even going so far as to keep their special sales running through the end of November. However, on the day itself, Israelis hit a new consumer high-point while almost breaking the credit card systems in Israel by making more than 10,000 credit card purchases per minute during high points over the course of the day.

The purchases were made in malls across the country as well as online. While tens of thousands of Israelis rushed to malls and stores all over Israel, many others made purchases while in the comforts of their own home via the internet on both computers and hand-held devices.

The peak hours of the purchasing took place on Friday morning ahead of the early entrance of Shabbos which began in Israel after 4:00 p.m. The statistics were listed by the business news website Calcalist who cited Automated Bank Services, Ltd., which is the central credit card clearance company in Israel. It is also the main communications network that processes credit card transactions across the country.

According to Calcalist’s report, there was a major slowdown in the credit card purchasing system during the peak purchasing hours. The holiday’s “exceptional load” almost overwhelmed the entire payment system causing it to slow to a point where it almost broke the system entirely. Because of the high volume of traffic, dozens of businesses throughout Israel reported problems with clearing credit cards during the day.

The website also reported that in the United States, sales during the consumer holiday totaled a record $6.22 billion this year. That figure would place this year’s total at more than a 23 percent increase from 2017, pointing to a possible rise in the economy.

(YWN israel Desk – Jerusalem)