Black Friday 2025: new retailer tactics, myth busting, and more

From a single-day discount event to a long weekend, then a full week, then a fortnight – and morphing into the whole of November. Black Friday creep in retail is real, and it keeps creeping.

Its influence on shopper behaviour is undisputed, and – one way or another, in or out – retailers now need a dedicated plan for this period.

Andy Mulcahy, strategy & insights director at UK ecommerce organisation IMRG, which provides granular detail on Black Friday activity each year, says: “It felt for a while that October would be too soon for a Black Friday launch and perhaps was a bit of a faux pas, but that has well and truly been overcome now.”

Citing IMRG data on LinkedIn, he said “many large, notable retailers” had their Black Friday campaigns live in October. Electrical retailers were the most likely to be in the game, with eight of the businesses in this category tracked by IMRG already live by Wednesday 29 October.

I’ve assessed some of the notable talking points for Black Friday 2025.

 

Can your supply chain hold up?

Q4 is a time when retailer supply chains need to be as robust as ever and at their most efficient. And even though Black Friday being stretched out over a lengthier period goes someway to easing the burden on retailer infrastructure, there is still an element of pent-up demand to consider.

Office for National Statistics data for the four weeks between 5 October and 1 November show total retail sales increased by 1.6% year on year in October, which was below the 12-month average growth of 2.1%. In-store non-food sales were up by just 0.1% and online non-food sales were flat, compared to the respective 12-month averages of 0.6% and 1.7%.

According to British Retail Consortium CEO Helen Dickinson, many curtailed their spending, “waiting for Black Friday deals and cooler temperatures before buying toys, electronics and clothing”.

Retailers with the most agile supply chains and IT infrastructure will be best prepared for the upturn, able to scale to demand and keep up with what consumers are asking from them. We’ve moved on as an industry from Black Friday in 2016 and 2017 when a number of the biggest retailer websites crashed, fulfilment failed, and customers were left in limbo at this would-be lucrative time of year, but there are still retailers that have to invest.

Modern order management systems such as those from Manhattan Associates can help retailers make crucial decisions about the most optimal places to ship goods from at busy times that can help ensure they don’t get in a Black Friday inventory muddle. Order management orchestration is tested to the max at this time of the year, so retailers need to be prepared.

 

Black Friday is a con, right?

For several years, consumer group Which? has dug deep into the pricing history of Black Friday deals to understand if products can be found cheaper or the same price at other times of the year. The most recent result: around four in ten deals were cheaper at other times of the year than on Black Friday, and 11% of investigated products were cheaper than their Black Friday price in the six months before the big day. 

It’s research like this that causes alarm bells to ring in consumers’ heads, and Currys undertook its own study which found 66% of consumers call the whole event a “con” with a further 62% sceptical about the discounts advertised during the shopping period.

So, the retailer has acted accordingly and is guaranteeing transparency.

For 2025, thousands of Currys Black Friday event products will have a ‘Our Lowest Ever Price’ badge on them, accompanied by a guarantee they’ve never been cheaper at Currys. It is also backed up by the 'Black Friday Price Guarantee', which promises to refund the difference to customers should the price change in the future.

Ed Connolly, chief commercial officer at Currys, argues: “Customers value honesty as much as they value savings – and at Currys, there’s no smoke and mirrors, just unbeatable prices.”

 

Are we a TikTok nation now?

I was intrigued, but not necessarily surprised, to learn Marks & Spencer (M&S) has made the decision to start selling via TikTok Shop.

The 4 November announcement is important I think, with initial pilots under way in the build-up to Black Friday. A curated selection of beauty products and home fragrance items are starting off M&S’s commercial TikTok journey – and it’ll be interesting to see how they sell this peak, when beauty items are highly sought after.

Following triple digit growth last year, TikTok Shop is expecting its best-ever performing sales day on Black Friday 2025, with the number of items on the platform having grown by 445% versus last year.

TikTok Shop reported in September its Live shopping sessions had increased by 72% year-on-year, and M&S has already said it will be dabbling in this fast-growing route to market in due course. Black Friday 2025 might be too soon (we’ll see), but as sales momentum on this channel continues it’s hard not to see this as a key part of the Black Friday ammunition going forward.

Some of the messaging M&S shared on TikTok in November was discount related, with the retailer using the platform to highlight 20% off deals across its fashion ranges.

Jan Wilk, head of TikTok Shop UK, claims TikTok Shop’s “discovery commerce model” has changed Black Friday considerably. Live shopping and shoppable videos allow buyers and sellers to connect in real-time online, “just like you would in a high street store but without Black Friday crowds”, he says.

I’m confident in saying TikTok Shop will play a more prominent role this peak period. M&S is an example of a traditional retailer jumping into this new world to attract younger consumers at its most important time of year for trading.

 

Who’s doing Black Friday differently?

And then there are those retailers doing things differently during Black Friday.

We’ve seen the rise of ‘Green Friday’ in recent years, with businesses opting to double down on environmental charity support in what they see as giving something back to the natural world as mass consumerism impacts it. But, this year, preloved platform Reskinned – which supports retailers such as Dune, Finisterre, and Seasalt with takeback and resale operations – is touting ‘Takeback Friday’.

It's a month-long campaign in November encouraging people to clear out before they buy again, with Reskinned aiming for people to get “intentional” with their wardrobes rather than spending just because it's cheap.

When a consumer sends Reskinned their preloved clothes through one of the platform’s takeback programmes, they’ll receive a £15 voucher for future use on Reskinned. It’s an anti-waste, anti-frivolous shopping move – and as editor of Green Retail World, I’ll be watching closely what traction it gets.

Elsewhere, it’s now ten years since US outdoor goods retailer REI Co-op started its #OptOutside campaign in November. It closes its 195 stores on Black Friday and, instead, gives its 14,000 employees a paid day to spend outdoors.

Susan Viscon, now the co-op's chief new ventures & impact officer, was part of the initial launch, saying it was a “big leap” considering the commercial impact but ultimately “an act of care that reflected our values and who we are as a co-op”.

REI will continue its tradition of closing all stores on Thanksgiving and Black Friday 2025, saying it is giving staff a moment to pause and think about what matters the most.

Meanwhile, a new player to the UK, Hazaar, is thinking outside the (web) box. The online student marketplace for preloved and unwanted retailer stock is running ‘Black Friday IRL’ in partnership with the University of Birmingham this Black Friday.

On campus, Hazaar will be working with brands to sell their returned items and samples to sustainability-minded students. A great way to mark Black Friday for a generation of people keen on vintage and second-hand shopping, and an ideal way for retailers to open up a new revenue stream.

A whole heap of goods will be sold by retailers again this Black Friday, but another year on there’s a whole heap of new thinking about this established event on the industry calendar. It’s fascinating to see how retailers continue to evolve their propositions at this time of year but those thinking most about the customer, which includes investing in and testing those tech stacks, are likely to thrive and best deal with the heavy load.