The 6 Trends Shaping BFCM 2025

A lookahead to this year's BFCM & holiday season, and how to be prepared.

Author

Pietro Saccomani
November 06, 2025

The next two months are the most important time of the year for ecom brands (but you don’t need me to tell you that).

That part isn’t new. But there’s a lot that is changing about how consumers (and by extension, brands) approach the holiday season.

Peaks happen at different times. Shoppers look for deals in different places. Consensus best practices are changing.

Today, we’re going to look at the biggest and most important trends to keep an eye on. This is shaped by how previous Black Fridays/Cyber Mondays played out, as well as the direction ecommerce has been moving so far this year.

Here’s what to expect (and what to prepare for) heading into BFCM 2025.

1. A Longer Holiday Season

Holiday shopping keeps creeping earlier each year. And lasting longer.

According to WooCommerce’s 2025 holiday trends survey, nearly half of brands began their promotions earlier than ever this year — many as early as the first week of November.

Black Friday doesn’t sneak up on anyone. On the consumer side, Impact.com reports that over 50% of shoppers start researching by late October.

Yet despite that, Klaviyo data shows that nearly half of total holiday revenue now falls within a 16-day window around Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

In short: shoppers are starting early, but the purchase surge is more compressed.

Meanwhile, don’t expect December to be a dead period.

Common Thread Collective predicts December sales will outperform November for many brands due to Cyber Monday falling later in the calendar. And Impact reports nearly three-quarters of people plan to buy something after Cyber Week, but before Christmas.

BFCM is starting to look a lot like the old in-store Black Friday sales. Remember when people would go out and get stampeded just to get 25% off a TV?

That’s what it’s like opening your social feed or inbox during BFCM. It’s just too much noise.

Watch as more shoppers take the opportunity to avoid the rush, and brands take the opportunity to advertise when competition (and costs) are lower.

2. A Different Kind of Deal

Consumers are still spending. Adobe predicts a 5.3% increase in US holiday sales vs 2024.

But costs are higher, wallets tighter, and customers are more selective.

Data from Attentive shows that 31% of consumers plan to buy fewer items, while 35% are seeking better value — signaling that deal-hunters want more than just “50% off.”

It makes sense on the brand side as well. Margins are thinner, and there’s less room to throw discounts around haphazardly.

Expect to see more creative promos. Bundles, loyalty rewards, BOGO offers, limited drops, and early-access perks.

For brands, it’s a chance to protect margins while creating experiences that feel exclusive and purposeful. The era of pure discounting is giving way to smarter, story-driven offers.

3. Multi-Channel Discovery

Product discovery is now fractured across dozens of surfaces — TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, Google Shopping, influencer links, even AI tools.

Shoppers may find your brand on one platform, research it on another, and convert on a completely different channel.

And the worst part is, the increasing privacy controls mean tracking and attributing sales across these channels is harder than it’s ever been.

The challenge for brands: measure performance without relying on last-click data, and build campaigns that reflect how people actually move between channels.

4. Owned Channels and Retention

Customer acquisition costs and landed costs continue to go up. By now, it’s a familiar story.

Anything that helps you claw back margin should be a top priority. That means investing in email, SMS, and push notifications (affordable channels, that you control) and building stronger post-purchase relationships.

Your existing customers are always going to be your most profitable revenue.

Brands that focus on retention and loyalty this BFCM will go into 2026 with more profit in the bank, and a better foundation for growth.

5. Mobile-First Shoppers

Mobile continues to dominate online shopping.

Adobe Analytics data shows 70% of global online spending during BFCM 2024 came from mobile, while in the U.S., Cyber Monday mobile sales hit 57%, up 13.3% year-over-year.

Just about every outlet worth reading expects mobile’s share to grow again in 2025, as consumers become more comfortable completing large purchases on phones.

Every campaign, every part of your site — from ads to landing pages to checkout — needs to be built with mobile front of mind.

Focus on channels built for mobile shoppers — SMS, mobile apps, and push notifications.

Meet your customers where they are.

6. The AI Factor

We can’t leave without mentioning the elephant in the room.

AI is reshaping the shopping experience in real-time, even if we’re currently just scratching the surface.

There’s the role it plays on your site and in your existing campaigns; from personalized recommendations to AI-driven deal finders and one-click checkout tools.

But the bigger question: how will consumers use AI to discover, compare, and buy?

We don’t have a clear answer for this right now. But Instant Checkout conveniently launched just in time, and I’m fascinated to see how many customers decide not to get trampled by all the promo traffic in their inboxes and social feeds, and go to ChatGPT and other tools to find deals this year.

Final Thoughts

The holiday season is no longer about who can shout the loudest or discount the deepest.

It’s about timing, targeting, and execution — across more channels, more devices, and more personalized journeys than ever before.

The best advice: plan early, protect your margins, and meet your customers wherever (and however) they shop.

Show up in front of your best customers, every day

When a customer downloads your app, your brand’s icon shows up on their home screen, next to Instagram, TikTok, Amazon, and all the other apps they open compulsively.

It lets you reach your best customers, for free, with push notifications — right on the lock screen (not the promotions tab in Gmail).

Retention and loyalty are more important than ever. One of the best ways to improve both and drive repeat sales is with your own mobile app.

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

“Who’s Responsible for an AI Agent’s Mistake?”

This is a fascinating question, that I expect will become more important in the near future. When agentic shopping kicks off (real agentic shopping — AI agents autonomously making purchases for you), screwups will inevitably happen.

Who’s accountable for this? Who eats the cost of spending $8K on candles?

These questions, and the matter of trust, is probably the biggest blocker right now from AI taking over online shopping in a big way.

PayPal Added to Instant Checkout

OpenAI’s Instant Checkout keeps growing; after partnerships with Shopify, Etsy, Walmart already, they’re now adding the ability to pay inside ChatGPT with PayPal.

The Early Mover’s Guide to AI Product Discovery

A reminder that AI shopping and AI SEO is still a market in its infancy. Most agree it’s going to get a lot, A LOT bigger, and it’s smart to start working to maximize discovery now.

Thought this article was a good breakdown — definitely worth a read.

Sephora’s New Creator Strategy

I’m fascinated by what Sephora’s doing. Creators, UGC and affiliates are obviously massive for brands in their space, and they’re cutting out the middleperson by building their own creator platform.

Of course, easier to do when you’re a brand as big as Sephora. But I think it’s a great example of how brands can get creative and start taking ownership of their audience — instead of renting attention from channels like TikTok.

TikTok Deal Approved

Speaking of, the deal for TikTok’s US business to be transferred to US ownership has been approved, with a deadline in place for January 20, 2026, for the transfer to take place.

Looks like TikTok Shop isn’t going anywhere (whether that’s good or bad, I’ll leave up to you).

How TikTok Shop is Turning Into a Grocery Platform

Still on the topic of TikTok, it’s no longer just a niche channel for primarily beauty brands.

A rising number of brands in the food category are jumping on board, now making this the second biggest category on TikTok Shop, with 14% of all sales on the platform.

BFCM & Cash Timing

Good reminder of how sales numbers on a dashboard don’t always tell the whole story.

Cash flow is often ignored, but matters in a big way — you need to be able to pay your bills and keep the lights on. And it can turn into a big problem post-BFCM; so make sure you’re covered.

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.