7 Takeaways from BFCM 2025 (So Far)

Black Friday isn’t here yet — but the patterns are. See what the early signals show.

Author

Pietro Saccomani
November 26, 2025

If you run a DTC brand, BFCM doesn’t start on Friday. Or Thursday. It started last week. And you can already see who came prepared.

I’ve been digging through nearly a hundred brand apps this week, watching how teams are rolling out their offers, how they’re crafting their strategy, what’s working, what’s not.

I know you’re knee-deep in it yourself, so let’s keep it brief. Here are seven things that stood out.

1. BFCM is Not a 5-Day Event

BFCM isn’t a long weekend anymore. It’s a season.

Most brands didn’t wait for Friday (or Thursday) to flip the switch. Nearly 75% of the apps I checked already had their Black Friday promos live by Monday the 24th.

Plenty went live even earlier. “November deals” are pretty common.

The window keeps stretching. Every year, BFCM starts sooner, lasts longer, and blends into the surrounding weeks.

That doesn’t necessarily mean you need to do the same, of course. Stretching your promo over a month instead of five days could dilute it and kill the urgency.

If you do stretch it out, rotate your offer. Keep it fresh. A flat 15% off for 30 straight days will get stale fast.

2. Why Is There No BFCM Messaging in Your App?

This one surprised me. I’ve seen more brands than expected with full BFCM takeover on their site… and nothing in their app.

There are only two explanations:

Option A: It’s intentional.

You’re trying to use BFCM to attract new customers, not discount your existing ones.

I get the logic, but it’s going to backfire. Nothing kills retention faster than making your best customers feel second-tier.

Option B: Your channels are out of sync.

More likely: the promo went live on the site, but updates in the app are lagging behind. Perhaps the two platforms are being managed separately. Perhaps the app has become too much work and isn’t actively being maintained.

These brands really need to check out MobiLoud — which makes sure your site and app are always in sync, no matter what.

3. Let BFCM Do the Work For You

A handful of brands still aren’t making it obvious they’re running a Black Friday sale.

There’s some indication, if you dig deep enough.

But there’s no banner. No strikethrough pricing. No dedicated sale page.

If you looked at it like a customer (not a marketer) you wouldn’t even know a sale was happening.

BFCM is a moment where the event does half the marketing for you. People are actively hunting for deals. They expect discounts. They’re primed to buy.

Let the momentum work in your favor. Make the offer unmistakable.

Put it on your homepage. Put it in your navigation. Tag products. Add urgency cues. Use strikethroughs everywhere a shopper might hesitate.

If people have to look for your Black Friday promo, you’ve already lost them.

4. Creating an Emotional Connection from BFCM

On a deeper level, I’m thinking about the excitement that comes with BFCM. The energy.

The kind of energy that creates an emotional attachment.

When brands lean into that excitement, they create emotional stickiness. And that’s what turns casual buyers into fans who remember you long after the sale ends.

Think about the events you remember most: concerts, launches, holidays. They stand out because they feel different from the everyday. BFCM has that same built-in “event” energy. Use it.

Highlight the hype. Make the experience feel special. Add personality, momentum, even a little drama.

A great sale moves product. A great moment builds loyalty.

5. The Post-BFCM Opportunity

Customers place orders with 11 different stores this week, and I guarantee you a huge chunk of those brands will completely mail in the post-purchase experience.

Generic order confirmations. No personality. No onboarding. No attempt to help customers get value from what they just bought.

These brands will be forgotten.

You won’t, of course. You’ll show up with care. Real updates. Useful guidance. A little humanity. You’ll realize the huge opportunity there is to stand out.

6. The Gifting Play

Some brands don’t have natural repeat-purchase velocity. You buy the product once, maybe twice, and that’s it. So blasting your list with “Buy another one!” doesn’t move the needle.

That’s why the smartest brands lean into gifting.

Look at Simple Modern. Most of their customers already have a tumbler. Blasting a sale to get customers to buy another one would likely have middling success.

But go on their site right now. It’s all positioned as the perfect gift.

Suddenly the same product makes sense for multiple purchases, because you’re not selling to the same buyer… you’re selling to everyone they know.

Perhaps that’s why Simple Modern is a 9-figure brand.

Gifting unlocks a whole new revenue path for low-frequency brands.

7. Brands are Struggling to Engage Existing Customers

SourceMedium has some really interesting stats for the month of November thus far.

Overall sales are slightly down vs the same period in 2024. New customer sales are up.

Ad spend is also up (barely). And returning customer sales? Just 69% of last year.

That’s a pretty significant gap; and it tells a clear story.

Everyone’s inbox is overflowing. Reach is down. Algorithms filter and limit your reach. Brands are spending more just to reach the people who already bought from them.

It means brands with reliable engagement channels (above-average email & SMS performance; engaged app users) have a serious competitive advantage.

If you can consistently re-engage the customers you already earned, you’re playing a different game than everyone else this week.

(Get a look at SourceMedium’s data here)

Final Thoughts

We’re not even in the “real” BFCM yet, but there are already some interesting patterns emerging.

I’m looking forward to tracking how the rest of the week plays out.

I’m pretty sure we’ll find that the brands that win are the ones with strong fundamentals. Clear messaging. Consistent execution. Thoughtful CX. A post-purchase experience that actually feels like someone’s home on the other side.

That stuff matters even more when there’s so much noise about.

Start owning your audience

If you don’t want to rely on a thousand algorithms to stay in front of your buyers, you need a mobile app.

It’s a direct connection to your best customer. And finally lets you own the relationship (no middlemen controlling your reach — no more being forgotten).

MobiLoud turns your existing site into an app, with no rebuilding, nearly no work to maintain, and full feature parity with your website.

Quick Hits

ChatGPT Shopping Research

We’re in the early stages, I think, of an AI shopping arms race.

Just last week we talked about Google’s new agentic shopping features and how this changes the ecommerce landscape. Now OpenAI has hit back with their own version — “Shopping Research” mode in ChatGPT.

With every new announcement, I just can’t help wondering how much different online shopping will look this time next year. We’re in for a major shift in shopping behavior.

Amazon Rufus Adds New Shopping Features

In similar news, Amazon is upgrading their AI assistant, Rufus.

Rufus uses Amazon’s custom LLM model to become smart, more capable, more helpful (allegedly) and more personalized.

It’s basically Amazon’s answer to the OpenAI/Google features; aimed, as with everything they do, at keeping Amazon shoppers buying from Amazon and nowhere else.

Ecommerce Funding On Track for Lowest in Years

Investment in ecom brands is declining, according to Crunchbase.

This shouldn’t be a surprise; VC money has been drying up for some time now. But it’s not necessarily a bearish sign for the industry.

Though there’s less money being thrown around haphazardly by investors, people are still spending, and there’s plenty of profit to be had from brands whose growth isn’t reliant on huge funding rounds.

Ecommerce Growth Slowest Since 2022

With a projected growth rate of 5.3% YoY, the ecommerce industry is on track for its slowest year of growth since 2022.

While that could be taken as bad news, I’m not sure it is. The industry is still growing (even if it’s at a slightly slower pace), and that’s with tariffs, inflation, and everything else going on in the world right now.

All in all, I think we’re in a decent spot.

Value Tops Shoppers’ Wishlists

A Mastercard survey on holiday shopping behavior shows that value for money is the top priority for shoppers this year.

Another interesting takeaway: 91% of Gen Z shoppers (90% of consumers overall) plan to do holiday gift shopping in-store. So while online and social shopping are on the rise, the death of traditional retail has thus far been greatly exaggerated.

Scarcity & Urgency: Use It, but Don’t Fake It

Scarcity and urgency tactics (“Sale ends in 2 hours!” “Quick, only 3 items left!”) are great tactics to drive action and boost conversions.

They work. That much is true. But be careful about faking them — doing so can quickly erode trust and backfire on you.

That’s all for now.

I’ll be back in touch next week, with more on how successful brands are doing CX and retention right.

If there’s any topic you’d like to see us dive into, for either the newsletter or the podcast, just shoot me a message here.

Until next time,

Pietro and The Retention Edge Team

PS: want to boost retention, revenue and profitability? If so, launching your own app could be the best move you make this year.

See how: go to our website to get a preview of your app for free, or shoot me a DM on LinkedIn to talk about it.