As we approach the final months of 2025, anticipation is building for what promises to be the most transformative Black Friday in history. This year’s shopping extravaganza, scheduled for November 28, 2025, is set to break unprecedented records and usher in a new era of retail innovation that will fundamentally change how consumers shop and how retailers engage with their customers.
Record-Breaking Sales Projections and Market Dominance
Historical Growth Momentum
Black Friday 2025 is positioned to make history as part of the first quarter-trillion-dollar holiday season, with Adobe forecasting a record-breaking $253.4 billion in online spending from November 1 to December 31—a remarkable 5.3% increase from the previous year. The shopping weekend spanning Black Friday through Cyber Monday is expected to capture approximately 9% of all retail holiday sales, representing the highest seasonal share ever recorded since tracking began.
Black Friday 2025 Growth Forecasts Across Different Categories
The growth trajectory is particularly striking when examining the Black Friday to Cyber Monday period specifically, which is projected to grow by an impressive 11% year-over-year, significantly outpacing the overall holiday sales growth forecast of 4%. This concentration of shopping activity during the traditional Black Friday weekend demonstrates the enduring power of this retail phenomenon, even as shopping patterns have evolved to span longer periods.
Consumer Participation Reaches New Heights
Consumer engagement with Black Friday continues to intensify, with 55% of US consumers planning to shop on the day after Thanksgiving, up from 51% the previous year. This increasing participation rate reflects both the strength of promotional offerings and the strategic timing of retailers who have learned to maximize the impact of their Black Friday campaigns.
The Mobile Commerce Revolution Takes Center Stage
Mobile-First Shopping Dominance
Perhaps the most significant transformation defining Black Friday 2025 is the complete dominance of mobile commerce. For the first time in retail history, mobile devices are forecasted to account for more than 56.1% of all holiday season revenue, marking 2025 as the first full year where mobile comprises more than half of online spending. This milestone represents a fundamental shift in consumer behavior that has profound implications for how retailers design their shopping experiences.
Global sales increase on Black Friday compared to an ordinary day
The mobile revolution extends beyond just revenue share, with mobile devices driving approximately 70% of all retail site visits during the holiday season. The convenience and ubiquity of smartphone shopping have fundamentally altered the retail landscape, enabling consumers to shop from anywhere at any time, breaking down the traditional boundaries between online and offline commerce.
Mobile shopping patterns during Black Friday 2024 already demonstrated this trend, with 69% of all Black Friday purchases made on mobile devices globally. European retailers experienced particularly dramatic mobile engagement, hitting a peak of 11.4 orders per second on Black Friday—a staggering 205% jump over regular retail periods.
Enhanced Mobile Shopping Experience
The shift to mobile-first shopping has driven retailers to invest heavily in optimizing their mobile platforms, creating seamless, app-like experiences that rival or exceed traditional desktop shopping. Mobile apps have shown particularly strong performance, with Tapcart merchants experiencing 26.5% year-over-year revenue growth during Cyber Week, with mobile app users maintaining higher average cart sizes of $112.39 compared to web-only stores.
Artificial Intelligence Transforms the Shopping Experience
AI-Powered Shopping Revolution
Black Friday 2025 marks a pivotal moment in the integration of artificial intelligence into retail, with AI-driven traffic to retail sites expected to surge by 515-520% compared to the 2024 holiday season. Thanksgiving Day alone is projected to see AI traffic growth of 725-730% year-over-year, demonstrating the rapid adoption of AI-powered shopping tools by consumers.
Rituals promotes their Black Friday sale as ‘Green Friday’ focusing on sustainable refills to combine savings with eco-friendly shopping
The AI revolution in shopping is being driven by the dramatic expansion of AI platform usage, with ChatGPT users growing from 300 million monthly users during last year’s Black Friday to between 700-800 million users in 2025. This represents more than a doubling of the potential AI-powered shopping audience in just one year.
Consumer adoption of AI for shopping purposes has accelerated significantly, with 52% of consumers planning to use AI for shopping in 2025, compared to only 38% who actually used it in the previous year. This trend indicates that AI-powered shopping has moved from experimental adoption to mainstream consumer behavior.
Agentic Commerce and Instant Checkout
One of the most revolutionary developments for Black Friday 2025 is the introduction of agentic commerce through platforms like OpenAI’s Instant Checkout feature. This technology allows consumers to make purchases directly through AI chatbots, eliminating the need to navigate to separate retail websites. Initially launching with Etsy stores and expanding to over one million Shopify merchants, this represents a fundamental shift toward AI-mediated commerce.
The impact of AI on retail extends beyond consumer-facing applications to include sophisticated personalization engines, demand forecasting, and inventory management systems that enable retailers to deliver highly targeted, relevant shopping experiences at scale.
Buy Now, Pay Later Becomes Mainstream
BNPL Market Explosion
The Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) sector is experiencing unprecedented growth, with the global BNPL market projected to reach $560.1 billion in 2025—a 13.7% year-over-year increase. For the 2025 holiday season specifically, Adobe forecasts BNPL spending will reach $19.8-20.4 billion, representing 9-12% growth over 2024.
Mobile shopping app offering Buy Now, Pay Later option with an add to cart button
Cyber Monday 2025 is expected to make history as the first single day to exceed $1 billion in BNPL spending, with projections ranging from $1.05-1.08 billion. This milestone underscores how BNPL has evolved from a niche payment option to a mainstream financial tool that influences major purchasing decisions.
Consumer BNPL Adoption Patterns
Nearly one-third of shoppers (32%) plan to use Buy Now, Pay Later services during the 2025 holiday season, with 75% of these BNPL transactions occurring on mobile devices. The appeal of BNPL extends beyond mere convenience, with 62% of users utilizing these services to manage cash flow and spread out costs, while 40% align purchases with their payday schedules.
The strategic value of BNPL for retailers has become increasingly clear, with 50% of consumers using these services to purchase more expensive gifts that they might not otherwise afford. This capability to increase average order values while reducing payment friction has made BNPL integration essential for competitive Black Friday strategies.
Sustainability and Conscious Consumerism
The Rise of Green Friday
Black Friday 2025 is witnessing a significant shift toward sustainable shopping practices, with the emergence of “Green Friday” as a conscious alternative to traditional consumption-focused shopping. This movement reflects growing consumer awareness of the environmental impact of mass consumption, particularly during peak shopping periods.
Eco-friendly Black Friday shopping tips to promote sustainability and responsible consumerism
The sustainability trend is being driven by stark realities about Black Friday’s environmental impact. In 2022, European shoppers generated an estimated 400,000 tonnes of waste over the Black Friday weekend. In response, forward-thinking brands are reimagining their Black Friday strategies to emphasize sustainability, quality over quantity, and ethical consumption practices.
Sustainable Shopping Innovations
Brands are implementing innovative approaches to sustainable Black Friday shopping, including made-to-order models that reduce overproduction, promotional focus on existing inventory rather than new production, and initiatives that encourage recycling and trade-in programs. Some companies, like Allbirds, have even experimented with increasing prices during Black Friday and donating the additional revenue to environmental causes, challenging the traditional discount-focused model.
The sustainable shopping movement emphasizes several key principles: reducing waste through better packaging and longer-lasting products, supporting ethical production practices and fair labor conditions, encouraging mindful consumption over impulse buying, and promoting local production to reduce transportation emissions.
Social Commerce and Influencer Integration
Influencer Marketing Dominance
Social commerce has become integral to Black Friday success, with 35% of UK consumers trusting influencer recommendations most for gift ideas and product discovery during the holiday season. The influencer marketing space has evolved beyond simple product endorsements to sophisticated campaigns that drive immediate conversions through carefully timed, platform-specific content strategies.
The effectiveness of influencer partnerships during Black Friday is particularly pronounced, with 64% of consumers more willing to buy from companies that partner with their favorite influencers. This preference has led to the development of specialized Black Friday influencer campaigns that emphasize urgency, exclusivity, and limited-time collaborations.
Platform-Specific Social Commerce Strategies
Different social media platforms serve distinct roles in the Black Friday ecosystem. TikTok excels at creating viral moments and reaching younger audiences through authentic, unpolished content that can catapult deals to massive audiences within hours. Instagram Shopping and TikTok Shop provide direct purchasing capabilities, while YouTube’s long-form content format proves particularly effective for higher-priced products that require detailed demonstrations and reviews.
The integration of social commerce with traditional retail has reached new levels of sophistication, with features like Instagram Shopping, TikTok Shop, and Pinterest Lens enabling seamless transitions from content discovery to purchase completion.
Global Expansion Beyond Traditional Markets
International Black Friday Growth
Black Friday has evolved from a uniquely American shopping tradition to a global retail phenomenon, with international markets showing remarkable growth rates. The global Black Friday market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.3% during the forecasted period from 2025 to 2032.
Global growth trends in Black Friday interest over the past five years
European markets have shown particularly strong adoption, with countries like the Netherlands seeing participation grow from 35 stores in 2015 to over 166 shops by 2018. Norway, Poland, and Romania have all developed their own localized Black Friday traditions, with Romania’s eMAG and Flanco reporting combined sales of nearly 60 million euros in 2014.
Localized Shopping Behaviors
The international expansion of Black Friday has led to interesting regional variations in shopping behavior and promotional timing. For example, Romania holds its Black Friday two weeks before the US version, while countries across Europe have developed their own promotional calendars that align with local shopping patterns and cultural preferences.
Extended Shopping Seasons and Strategic Timing
Beyond Single-Day Shopping
Black Friday 2025 represents the culmination of a trend toward extended shopping seasons that begin weeks before the traditional day and continue through the entire holiday period. Retailers have learned that capturing consumer attention and spending requires sustained engagement rather than relying on single-day promotional intensity.
The extension of the shopping season is partly driven by logistical considerations, as retailers seek to distribute demand across longer periods to avoid website crashes and fulfillment bottlenecks that have historically plagued Black Friday events. Additionally, consumers have demonstrated preferences for spreading their holiday shopping across multiple time periods rather than concentrating all purchases on a single day.
Strategic Early Access Programs
Major retailers have developed sophisticated early access programs that reward loyal customers and membership program participants with advance access to Black Friday deals. Walmart Plus members receive approximately 5-hour early online access, while Target Circle members gain access to daily deal offerings throughout the promotional period.
These early access programs serve multiple strategic purposes: they reward customer loyalty, provide valuable data about demand patterns, help retailers manage inventory and fulfillment capacity, and create additional promotional opportunities throughout the extended shopping season.
Technology Infrastructure and Innovation
Advanced Personalization and Targeting
Black Friday 2025 showcases the most sophisticated personalization technologies ever deployed in retail, with AI algorithms capable of predicting individual consumer preferences with unprecedented accuracy. These systems analyze purchase history, browsing behavior, real-time engagement patterns, and even social media activity to create highly targeted promotional offers and product recommendations.
The shift toward “small-batch” personalized deals represents a fundamental departure from traditional mass-market promotional strategies. Rather than offering the same discounts to all customers, retailers are increasingly creating individualized promotional experiences that optimize both customer satisfaction and profit margins.
Infrastructure Scalability and Reliability
The technological infrastructure supporting Black Friday 2025 has evolved to handle massive traffic spikes and transaction volumes that would have been impossible just a few years ago. Cloud computing, AI-powered load balancing, and advanced content delivery networks enable retailers to provide consistent shopping experiences even during peak demand periods.
European retailers demonstrated this capability during Black Friday 2024, processing 11.4 orders per second at peak times—a 205% increase over normal operations. This level of scalability requires sophisticated technical architecture and careful capacity planning that extends far beyond traditional e-commerce platforms.
Future Implications and Industry Evolution
Long-term Market Transformation
Black Friday 2025 represents more than just a seasonal shopping event; it serves as a preview of the future of retail commerce. The convergence of mobile-first shopping, AI-powered personalization, sustainable consumption practices, and social commerce integration points toward a fundamentally different retail landscape that will persist long after the holiday season ends.
The success of innovations introduced during Black Friday 2025 will likely determine which technologies and strategies become permanent fixtures of the retail industry. The high-stakes, high-visibility nature of Black Friday creates an ideal testing ground for new approaches to customer engagement, payment processing, inventory management, and fulfillment optimization.
Consumer Behavior Evolution
The shopping behaviors and preferences demonstrated during Black Friday 2025 will provide crucial insights into the evolving relationship between consumers and retailers. The balance between convenience and sustainability, the role of AI in purchase decisions, and the importance of social proof and influencer recommendations will all be tested at scale during this critical shopping period.
As consumers become increasingly sophisticated in their use of technology for shopping, retailers must continue to innovate and adapt their strategies to meet evolving expectations. The companies that successfully navigate the complexities of Black Friday 2025 will be best positioned to thrive in the increasingly competitive and technology-driven retail environment of the coming years.
Black Friday 2025 stands as a watershed moment in retail history, combining record-breaking sales projections with revolutionary technological innovations and evolving consumer values. The convergence of mobile commerce dominance, AI-powered shopping experiences, mainstream BNPL adoption, sustainability consciousness, and global market expansion creates a unique shopping environment that will define the future of retail commerce for years to come.