Peak season readiness guide: Australia

Australian retail has had a good year. Over four in five merchants (82%) reported an increase in annual turnover from 2024 to 2025, with the largest share reporting growth between 11% and 30%. Only 11% reported a decrease.

Underneath that growth, how customers pay is changing. Three quarters of Aussies (75%) say they have changed how they typically pay for purchases, with 37% saying the ability to pay quickly using tap-and-go or a digital wallet is essential or very important.

No matter how a customer pays, performance shapes what they think of the business and whether they complete the purchase. Nearly all Australian merchants (97%) were affected by payment performance issues in the past 12 months, and shoppers respond directly:

• 62% of Aussies say a payment error has a negative impact on their perception of a business

• 24% abandon the purchase altogether

• 15% switch to a competitor

Questions to ask your team

• Are we offering the payment methods and wallets our customers now default to?

• Have we reviewed checkout performance across web, app, and in-store?

• Where do customers drop out before completing payment?

• Which failures create refund and support volume, and can we cut them before peak?

• Have we reviewed last year's checkout data and customer feedback?

Peak season is traditionally built on blanket discounts. They create short-term demand, but they also compress margin and reward customers who were always going to buy. Retailers seeing stronger results use purchase history and loyalty data to personalise incentives, and watch for coupon misuse and refund policy abuse while they do it.

Questions for marketing and payments, together

• Are our promotions rewarding our most valuable customers, or everyone?

• Can we personalise offers consistently across online and in-store?

• Do we have visibility into promotion abuse, coupon misuse, and refund policy abuse?

Peak season changes how customers and fraudsters behave. Nearly nine in ten Australian merchants (88%) were targeted by or fell victim to payment fraud in the past 12 months, and the pattern leans towards abuse of legitimate-looking journeys like chargeback abuse and refund fraud.

Loyal customers purchase more frequently, spend more, and engage differently with promotions and returns. Those same customer journeys also become attractive targets for abuse, with fraudsters exploiting promotions, refunds, and loyalty programs alongside attempting traditional payment fraud. The challenge is recognising the difference between legitimate customers and behaviour that only appears legitimate.

Customers are exposed directly too. Two in five Aussies (40%) received a phishing or scam message pretending to be a retailer or delivery company in the past 12 months, which raises the bar on how your own messages and checkout pages look during a period of high order volume.

Questions to ask before you change a rule

• Have we reviewed fraud rules against last year's peak performance?

• Which rules produced the most false positives, and what did they cost us?

• Are authentication settings tuned for conversion as well as risk management?

• How quickly can we adjust rules if patterns shift mid-season?

• Are refund and returns policies protected against abuse without penalising genuine customers?

Fraud attempts have an average transaction value 64% higher than legitimate transactions. 44.3% of businesses report as one of their most common fraud challenges, while 39.8% cite policy and promotion abuse.

For a deeper look at how first-party fraud, policy abuse, and legitimate-looking behaviour are reshaping enterprise fraud strategies, explore our 2026 report: Fraud's identity crisis.

Most retailers spend months preparing systems for peak season. Fewer review the operational processes that support them.

29% of Australian merchants named rapid shifts in customer expectations as their most common challenge in 2025, ahead of increased competition, implementing new technology, cybersecurity and customer data protection risks, and payment fraud and chargebacks.

Each of those becomes harder to manage without clear ownership. Before peak season hits, it’s worth reviewing the ownership, monitoring, and escalation processes that help teams respond quickly when transaction volumes increase or unexpected issues arise.

Questions about ownership

• Does every team know who owns a payment incident?

• Are escalation paths documented and understood?

• Have support, finance, and operations agreed on peak season processes?

• Are dashboards and alerts configured around the metrics that matter most?

• Who has authority to change fraud or checkout settings during peak?

Peak season can help you get a clear read on customer behaviour, including where new technology helps and where it doesn't.

AI is reshaping peak season, and ecommerce more broadly, on both sides of the transaction. Every Australian merchant surveyed (100%) reports using AI in some capacity, most often for customer experience, product and brand discovery, and customer service and support.

Customers are moving more slowly. 64% have used AI assistants to help with their shopping, but only a quarter (26%) are comfortable allowing AI to complete a purchase after their approval, and 64% feel uncomfortable with the idea.

The decisions made during peak season shouldn't end when the season does. Reviewing payment performance, customer behaviour, and operational trends creates a stronger foundation for future optimisation — not just next Black Friday but throughout the year.

Questions to answer after Cyber Monday

• Which metrics will define success beyond revenue?

• Are we measuring authorisation performance alongside conversion?

• What will we review after Cyber Monday?

• Which opportunities should become priorities after peak season?

Customer experience

• Can customers pay with the methods and wallets they prefer?

• Have we reviewed checkout performance across every channel?

• Have we removed unnecessary steps before payment?

Promotions and loyalty

• Are our promotions rewarding the right customers, rather than everyone?

• Can we personalise offers across online and in-store experiences?

• Have we reviewed safeguards against promotion and policy abuse?

Payments and risk

• Have fraud settings been reviewed for seasonal shopping behaviour?

• Are we monitoring false positives alongside fraud rates?

• Is our authentication strategy optimised for both conversion and risk?

Operations

• Does every team understand incident ownership and escalation?

• Are dashboards and alerts ready before peak traffic begins?

• Have refund and dispute processes been reviewed?

Performance

• Have we agreed on the metrics we'll monitor throughout peak season?

• Do we have a plan to review performance after Black Friday and Cyber Monday?

• Have we recorded what to improve before next year?

The Australian retailers that perform best during peak season are rarely the ones making last-minute changes. They are the ones that reviewed the checkout, agreed who owns what, and understood how their customers already choose to pay, well before the first wave of traffic arrived.