In this episode of the B2B Vault podcast, host Justin and guest Allen Kopelman (a veteran of payment processing) discuss November 2023 payment trends with a focus on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The conversation opens with casual banter about basketball player Jason Williams before moving into personal anecdotes about their own lack of Black Friday shopping and a memorable "talking Elmo" incident. They then examine mixed reports on Black Friday sales: some retailers, like the one where Allen’s son works, saw record days, while many stores reported disappointing figures and deceptive pricing tactics (signs being removed without actual discounts). The hosts note that Cyber Monday showed a 30% increase in online orders versus in‑person, yet overall tech product sales (high‑end phones, new laptops) were weak compared to previous years. Throughout, they critique the commercialization of the holiday season, labeling Black Friday as a "scam" and emphasizing the importance of understanding payment processing trends for small businesses.
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Yo, what's up everybody? It's Justin live from B2B Vault, the biz to biz podcast sponsored by Nationwide Payment Systems, hosted by this guy, the Jason Williams of payment processing himself, Allen Kopelman. And we'll be providing you educational information about fintech, small business payment processing, and the technology businesses are using in the world today. And in today's podcast, it's, uh, that time of Uh, yeah, the— it's payment trends for November. I, I said I would never say what I said before, and I caught myself, I was about to say it again. So yeah, it's payment trends, uh, for, uh, November 2023. Uh, he's got 2024 on here. I don't know what's going on.
I don't know, cuz 2024 is coming up soon.
Yeah, but this is for November. There's December still, so this is not the last one. Anyway, uh, notes in the airs, airs in the notes. How you doing, bro?
I'm doing good. Yeah, I saw a good video this morning with Jason Williams.
Yeah, he said J-Will, and I'm like, I don't know who that is.
That's what they called him on the Heat.
Yeah, I remember him as the White Chocolate, whatever, but I didn't— I would never call him that because that just is way too much. His name is Jason Williams.
He was just the— he was just—
he's a good basketball player.
He was a guy with a lot of trickery and like crazy passes and You know, sort of like the professor, but he brought streetball to it.
And I wouldn't say brought streetball because that's anyway, but he, I think, elevated the, you know, the street basketball to the NBA a little bit. You know, AI is the king, right?
You know what I mean?
You know, so, but, uh, just be, you know, anyway, yeah, what am I talking about? Jason Williams was all right. He's nothing like AI though.
No, he, he got, he played on a lot of teams, but because nobody could figure out what to do with them, you know, I don't know.
From what I hear, what I remember, he was always in trouble and he got injured a lot too.
Yeah.
I don't remember that, but yeah, I'm sure he made millions of dollars. So I don't know. Most, most athletes are broke within 8 years.
So, so how's your week going?
Terrible. Just what? I had to cancel plenty appointments that, you know, I mean, I don't even really want to get into it.
Okay.
It's just terrible. So, I mean, I'm alive and I'm very grateful for life and I'm happy to wake up and have another fight at the day, you know? So whatever else is happening is happened and I'm moving forward and tomorrow's another day and, you know, I'm here, man. Happy to be here, man. That's it.
All right.
Yep. Payment Trends. So what's up? Let's talk about Black Friday. I ain't buy a damn thing on Black Friday or Cyber Monday.
Neither did I.
Don't have the money. Uh, yes, it was funny to see. I was, uh, talking to my wife about it. I said, do you— did I ask her if she ever, you know, went to— because we've never went on Black Friday shopping.
No, I've never gone myself.
And I went one— I remember going one time, and it was— this was 23, maybe 22 years ago. So me and my wife weren't together at that time. So it's like, um, yeah, I, I said I would never go again. It wasn't even anything crazy like you see on the news or anything.
Well, it's always, you know, some crazy thing like Walmart has, you know, but it was the Elmo thing. Oh, the Elmo? Oh, talking Elmo?
That was the time, like, I, but guess what I did? What? I stayed in the car.
Oh.
On that time.
Yeah.
I would, for what I, that's the, that's right. I went the one time I went in there and it was nothing crazy. It was just long lines, you know what I mean? But then the Elmo thing came.
Right.
And yeah.
Talking Elmo, that was big, but they had tons of talking Elmos in the store.
What was the story about the talking Elmo thing is that You know, I was on a mission to get this thing for my daughter, right? The whole damn time my pops had already got it but didn't know that I— he did, because he does— my pops never watches, like, he didn't, you know, he doesn't know like popular stuff or anything. He had just went to the store a couple of like weeks prior and just happened to get lucky. No, he just happened to see it, right? He was just like, oh, this is cool. He's got a granddaughter, you know, he loved, you know, he thought it's Sesame Street, I love Sesame Street, blah blah blah. Yeah, you know what I mean? And he is like Elmo, you know, and he had got it. So that was hilarious, dude. Like, it was a— she ended up with two because I got one too.
But it was crazy, the, the, you know, like Black Friday, you see all these videos of people fighting over TVs and all that, but the Reports on Black Friday were like very mixed. Like, my son works in retail. They had a record day, right, at his store. But you saw a lot of stores that didn't have the, the sales weren't nearly as good as they thought they would be.
I mean, there were no sales, and then—
well, they had something on sale.
I don't know. I was watching a lot of videos of people going around different stores pulling the, the prices off of the thing, and the price wasn't changed. It'd say Black Friday and they pull the sign off, you know, Black Friday sale $629, pull the sign off, sale $629, no sale, right?
So I get what you're saying. The prices didn't change.
No, so, you know, it's— that's a big, you know, that's why I don't believe in the whole Hallmark holiday thing, right? Just— I'm with you on that, bro. Like, you know, it's Christmas in my house 365.
So the— no, but then so Cyber Monday You know, so the Black Friday got mixed reviews, and then Cyber Monday, they said Cyber Monday—
I didn't buy nothing on that day either—
was very busy. They said it was higher than last year, obviously because more people are buying online, 30% more online orders versus in person.
So, you know, it's funny that it says that you got that because I was reading something else that said compared to last year it was even almost the same.
That's what I'm saying, there's been mixed reports about how much business.
And I was reading for technology specifically, it was worse.
Yeah, it was very low on tech products, like, like higher—
nobody bought anything like iPhones, like high-end, high-end was very bad. And the laptop, like all the stuff that, that is like coming out right now. No one bought that.
Yeah, there's a lot of like high-end electronics. The sales were very flat.
