This year, retailers went into Black Friday with low expectations.
All signs seemed to point to a decline in holiday spending. Consumer sentiment plunged throughout the fall, signalling growing unease about the economy. Brands, their margins already squeezed by tariffs, were reluctant to offer deep discounts to draw in reluctant shoppers. Many have been offering markdowns for weeks, threatening to make Thanksgiving weekend a non-event.
Shoppers turned out anyway. Black Friday retail sales increased 4 percent year on year in the US, topping even last year’s pace, according to Mastercard. Online sales over the weekend jumped 9 percent year on year to $12 billion, according to Adobe, well above the company’s initial projected 5 percent increase. Adobe estimated Cyber Monday sales to reach as high as $14.2 billion.
The healthy growth is a byproduct of the “K-shaped” economy, where spending among higher-income households, buoyed by a stronger stock market and beefier savings, has helped offset pullbacks from lower-income consumers.
But Black Friday’s strong showing also reflects retail strategies designed to generate demand among increasingly discerning shoppers without race-to-the-bottom discounting. Brands rolled out campaigns to attract repeat spenders, launched new products to create excitement and concentrated discounts on top-selling styles.
The success of these tactics could rewrite the retail playbook for future holiday seasons – including putting less weight on what has historically been a make-or-break time, experts say.
“That whole mentality of the bailout that comes for retail on Black Friday is gone,” said Jen Jones, chief marketing officer at e-commerce software provider Commercetools. “That four-day weekend is not going to patch over 10 months of mediocrity.”
How Brands Drove Demand
Historically, Black Friday has been about eye-watering discounts first and foremost. This year, brands relied a bit less on bargains – Adobe found the average discount was 28 percent, versus 30 percent last year. Instead, they sought to hook customers with compelling storytelling and product curation.
A month before Black Friday kicked off, Birdies, which makes women’s flats, released a video across social media called “She’s Magic” where various women in Birdies’ shoes find joy and community amid embarrassing moments — such as when one woman helps another pick up lemons that have fallen from her grocery bag. The minute-long spot was a means to “break through the clutter of all this discounting,” but also to encourage customers to keep the brand top of mind when it released its 20-percent-off-everything deal on Thanksgiving, said Bianca Gates, Birdies’ co-founder and president.
“We are fighting for thumb-stopping content on your mobile device. If you’re seeing 50 percent off, extra 60 percent off, extra this, it’s just the same, but more,” Gates said. “Then you stop and you see a brand video that says ‘We get you.’”
Rather than using Black Friday to get rid of items that wouldn’t sell at full price, many companies pushed their top-selling products and launched new items to attract fickle consumers. A week before launching its official Black Friday deals on Nov. 21, Australian haircare label BondiBoost introduced a new version of its bestselling HG miracle hair mask with strawberry gum extract, which tripled sales for the product in November, including during the Black Friday promotional period, said Julia Ramanadhan, global brand president of BondiBoost.
“This is a way to drum up more interest and attention beyond just a percentage discount,” said Juan Pellerano-Rendón, chief marketing officer at e-commerce software startup Swap. “It can be a good way to lure people in that might be inundated with different offers.”
And because tariffs forced brands to look more closely at their supply chains and inventory, some were able to plan better for the final quarter. Birdies’ inventory planning made it easier for it to launch a furry loafer “as a surprise moment” for customers on Cyber Monday, Gates said.
“We did so much pre-planning because of the tariff whiplash at the beginning of the year … and it’s actually benefitted us,” Gates added. “It opened up forcing us to be even more creative … getting her excited about what you were offering her during this critical time of year.”
How Brands Managed Discounts
This year was ultimately a test of how consumers would respond to markdowns that weren’t as deep as they’re accustomed to.
Companies that lowered their discount rates were clear in their messaging that they wouldn’t roll out deeper storewide promotions, but instead offered ancillary promotions to make consumers feel like they were still getting good deals. Toms, for one, offered only 30 percent off for Black Friday, and didn’t increase that rate for Cyber Monday. Instead, the 19-year-old footwear maker created “deals of the day” or higher discounts on a tight selection of popular items and excess inventory, said Jessica Alsing, Toms’ chief executive. In the first week of its Black Friday promotion that started on Nov. 17, the brand’s e-commerce sales increased more than 5 percent.
“We really want transparency and predictability, versus constantly shifting promotions,” Alsing said. “That 30 percent standard really helps the consumer understand that they’re getting the best deal that is out there.”
Still, there were brands with no choice but to offer steeper markdowns than last year. Swimwear maker Montce saw slower online sales growth this year — after pulling back on digital marketing amid rising costs — leaving the company with more products to sell during the holidays, so the brand offered a 45 percent discount this year after giving 35 percent off last year.
Those who did so tried to find ways to mitigate the impact of higher discounts on their bottom line, such as shortening their discounting window. Montce started its Black Friday sale a week before Thanksgiving, instead of the two week headstart it took in 2024, to generate excitement and a renewed sense of urgency around the event, said chief executive Devin Grief. The brand logged a 38 percent year-on-year increase in sales over the weekend.
“In the beginning, we would have lines of people in the store waiting when we opened the doors. Now, that excitement’s not really there as much because it’s drawn out over such a longer period of time,” Grief said.
Brands also used discounts to push full price sales of other products. Occasionwear label Nadine Merabi cut the prices on only three-quarters of its assortment, keeping a quarter of its products at full price, said Jacob Booty, Nadine Merabi’s trading director. The result was triple-digit growth for the overall business in November, with full-price items accounting for 15 percent of sales, Booty added.
These strategies potentially set the tone for future holiday seasons where strong brand narrative and desirable products replace the rampant post-pandemic discount mania that’s become a crutch for consumers and dilutes brands’ equity — and margins.
“How well have [brands] developed the relationship with the consumer, so that the consumer is shopping with them out of almost impulse and instinct versus hunting around and trying to find the [best deals] from many different retailers,” said Vivek Pandya, director of digital insights at Adobe.
