January 23, 2026
January has become one of the most important trading periods of the year, with winter sales driving significant increases in online and in-store transactions. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), retail sales volumes in Great Britain rose by 1.7% in January 2025 after a fall in December 2024, showing a clear rebound in consumer spending at the start of the year (ONS Retail sales, Great Britain: January 2025).
With this early year momentum, Merchants rely on fast, secure, and uninterrupted payment processing to capture every opportunity. At Cardstream, our infrastructure is designed to help Partners and Merchants thrive during these high volume trading periods, ensuring a smooth start to the year.
Peak-Ready Scalability & Stability
Online and non-store sales continue to represent a significant share of UK retail. ONS data shows that internet sales accounted for around 27–28% of total UK retail sales through 2025 (ONS Retail Sales Index internet sales time series).
Cardstream’s platform is engineered for resilience, stability, and consistent performance, helping maintain smooth, uninterrupted payment journeys even during their busiest trading periods. This ensures that Merchants can process increased transaction volumes without delays, downtime, or checkout friction, crucial during the fast paced January sales environment.
Frictionless Checkout Experiences
During the January rush, conversion rates depend heavily on fast and simple checkout journeys. Industry research consistently finds that average online cart abandonment rates sit around 70%, often due to friction in the checkout flow (Baymard Institute – Cart Abandonment Rate benchmark).
Cardstream’s Hosted Fields, Click to Pay, broad APM support, and tokenisation help reduce that friction, enabling Merchants to increase completed sales when customer decision making is at its quickest.
With a growing share of shoppers now buying via mobile devices, our mobile optimised payment flows ensure customers can complete purchases quickly and confidently from any device.
Advanced Fraud Protection When It’s Needed Most
Fraud pressure often remains high around and after the peak season, making January a critical period for risk management. Industry reports show that fraud attempts tend to increase during and after peak trading periods, as criminals look to exploit higher transaction volumes and stored credentials.
Cardstream supports Partners and Merchants with layered security, including:
These tools help businesses minimise risk, reduce disputes, and protect revenue, even when high transaction volumes make manual monitoring more difficult.
Flexible Payment Methods to Meet Customer Demand
Payment choice is now a key driver of conversion. Research summarised by Contentsquare shows that around 13% of customers will abandon a transaction if their preferred payment method is not available.
Cardstream supports a wide range of card types, local payment methods, Open Banking transactions, and Alternative Payment Methods (APMs), giving Merchants the flexibility to meet these expectations.
Open Banking, in particular, continues to grow as a low cost, secure, account-to-account payment option, ideal for customers who are looking to manage spending more carefully after the festive period.
Powering Growth Through Partners
For platforms, SaaS providers, ISVs, and PayFacs, January is also a prime time for Merchant acquisition as businesses review their payment setup for the year ahead.
Industry forecasts indicate strong continued growth in embedded payments and embedded finance, as more platforms look to bring payments inside their own user journeys.
Cardstream’s PayFac-as-a-Service offering helps Partners capture this opportunity by enabling them to onboard Merchants quickly, compliantly, and at scale, without building a payments or compliance team from scratch. Automated KYC/KYB checks, configurable onboarding flows, and portfolio management tools turn seasonal interest into long-term growth.
A Strong Start to the Year
January sets the tone for the months ahead. With demand high and customer expectations rising, having a secure, scalable, and flexible payment solution is essential.
Cardstream’s platform is built to support Partners and Merchants through every stage of the payments journey, giving them the tools to convert more sales, reduce risk, and unlock new opportunities in 2026.
Whether you’re entering the year with ambitious growth plans or supporting Merchants through their biggest winter sales events, Cardstream is here to help you start strong.
