Black Friday 2025: 5 eCommerce Trends You Need to Look Out For

The online marketplace is fast-evolving, and tapping into the trends this Black Friday 2025 will help you stay ahead of the competition.

With the growing popularity of in-app shopping and many brands’ increasing adoption of AI, keeping up in eCommerce can feel more challenging than ever.

However, don’t fret, as we’re here to prepare you for Black Friday 2025 by walking you through the key trends driving eCommerce this season.

Let’s take a look at the Black Friday 2025 trends you should capitalise on to succeed during this critical period in the retail calendar.

When is Black Friday 2025?

Black Friday is traditionally the final Friday of November, which falls on November 28th this year. It’s often considered the biggest shopping day of the year.

It’s a key event particularly for eCommerce brands, with online sales having hit a record high of $10.8 billion on Black Friday 2024.¹

During the event, online and physical stores offer heavily discounted products to mark the beginning of the Christmas shopping season.

Nowadays, the inclusion of Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday has contributed to an extended weekend of shopping.

These key dates mean shopping isn’t just a pastime. It’s a planned activity that shoppers see as an integral part of their Christmas period.

5 Black Friday 2025 trends eCommerce retailers need to look out for

On Black Friday 2024, traffic surged, with eCommerce websites experiencing up to 65% more traffic than on any other Friday that year.² This spike in traffic presents opportunities for your brand to secure additional sales and drive up profits in the final quarter.

At a time when steady profits across the year aren’t guaranteed, it’s important to make the most of these high spending periods.

Liam Patterson from Bidnamic, a marketing technology platform helping brands unlock their full Google Shopping potential, discussed the key factors currently affecting retail:

“The ongoing cost of living crisis is making consumers tighten their belts, while online advertisers, particularly eCommerce companies, are readjusting from a period of high growth at any cost to a more competitive landscape with higher acquisition costs.”³

With most consumers across the globe being very likely to shop online, you must maximise this stream of virtually guaranteed income to maintain your position in the market.

To thrive during the most lucrative season in the eCommerce calendar, consider participating in the following Black Friday 2025 trends.

1. Mobile shopping

If you don’t understand the importance of optimising your site for mobile, you may lose out on eCommerce sales. 

In The Black Friday 2024 Report, we found that mobile devices accounted for 69.9% of sales and 61% of revenue on Black Friday 2024.

It’s clear that eCommerce stores must optimise their site for mCommerce to achieve optimum performance this shopping season.

To achieve this, be sure to pay particular attention to: 

• Images and videos: Make sure your site’s visual elements are resized so they display correctly on mobile devices.
  
  
• Load times: As a general rule across your eCommerce site, fast load times should be a priority to prevent visitors from clicking off.
  
  
• Navigation: Encourage visitors to explore your site by making it accessible with a user-friendly design.
  
  
• Streamline the checkout: Include alternative payment options such as Apple Pay, Google Pay or PayPal, and offer autofill to speed up and simplify the process.

Due to the nature of modern consumers, boosting sales and improving the on-site shopping experience begins with embracing the age of smartphone shopping.

Suggested reading: Discover the benefits of offering a fully optimised mobile shopping experience in our blog ‘6 Benefits of mCommerce’.

2. Social media influence

More than ever, consumers are looking to social media to find gift ideas or discover seasonal deals.

To get noticed by these social media-savvy shoppers, you’ll need to build a presence on the platforms relevant to your industry.

Here’s how you can utilise social media to build Black Friday excitement and get shoppers interested in your deals ahead of time:

• Exclusive previews: Be sure to utilise short-form video content to extend your reach.
  
  
• Countdown timers: Instil urgency by reiterating the limited time your discounts are available.
  
  
• Engaging content: Take advantage of the popularity of current social media trends by incorporating them into your plan. 

Developing a clear social strategy in the lead-up to Black Friday will prove more vital this year than in previous years to secure website traffic that converts.

Implementing the above points will ensure your audience will view, interact and remember your brand during their daily 2 hours of social media usage in the run-up to Black Friday.⁴

Suggested reading: Find more ways to level up your social strategy by reading our article ‘Black Friday: Getting the Most Out of Your Social Media Campaigns’.

3. Extended Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals

Black Friday is not the only date in November that can lead to an uplift in conversions.

Online retailers are now extending their deals into the weeks leading up to Black Friday and into December. This is because other key Q4 dates, such as Singles Day and Cyber Monday, also generate high levels of traffic.

The dates you should focus on will differ depending on the specifics of your business. You can discover which Q4 dates are likely to be most profitable for you by exploring industry-specific insights in Trends. 

Ensuring your marketing efforts focus not just on Black Friday, but also incorporate other important dates will really help you maximise sales.

Pro tip: Incorporate SMS marketing into your strategy to reach shoppers directly and ensure they receive time-limited deals before they expire.

4. Privacy-first marketing

You’ll want to make the most of the influx of Black Friday traffic by ensuring they opt in to your marketing. This means even if they don’t make a purchase, you’ll be able to retarget them through email or SMS.

However, online users are becoming concerned with how businesses handle their personal data across the web. Combined with the decline in third-party cookies, this means brands must take more care when collecting data from shoppers.

Salesfire’s On-Site Messaging can help you effectively maximise marketing opt-ins while ensuring you remain GDPR-compliant. Discover how Leisure Lakes Bikes captured 4.5x more shopper data with Salesfire.

Bidnamic’s Liam also spoke on the importance of having control over your marketing channels this Black Friday, which first-party data helps achieve:

“Smart eCommerce brands are focusing on growing D2C this Black Friday. An omnichannel mix on platforms like Google Shopping allows for greater control and personalisation than other channels — like marketplaces in particular — and also captures highly valued first-party data.”⁵

Pro tip: Once you’ve captured a shopper’s email address, you can retarget them using email flows. Continue prioritising privacy and maximising engagement by following email best practices.

5. AI-powered shopping experiences

Almost 9 out of 10 retailers are currently using or testing AI within their business operations.⁶

It’s no wonder, as AI can help your brand do more with less, enabling large-scale personalisation and automation without a huge budget. 

Black Friday is a great time to incorporate AI into your eCommerce strategy. At such a busy time, your staff are likely stretched thin, and automating tasks can ease this load.

Rather than manually segmenting and targeting your shoppers by email, AI-powered retargeting can effortlessly deliver the relevant message to the right shopper.

It can also help you enhance your shopping experiences. For example, Salesfire uses AI to display hyper-personalised product recommendations based on a user’s real-time on-site activity.

Suggested reading: Learn more about how AI can help you personalise the shopping experience.

Make Black Friday 2025 a success 

Enjoying a triumphant Q4 largely depends on your business’ performance throughout the Black Friday period.

Understanding the trends that drive this busy season can help you maximise your Black Friday success.

With consumers showing concern for mobile friendliness and data privacy, consider adopting tools which will help you optimise your eCommerce site for these needs.

Supporting your business with AI will also allow you to deliver even better shopping experiences with minimal effort.

By incorporating these trends into your strategy, you can create trustworthy and engaging shopping experiences that effectively convert your shoppers into loyal customers.

¹ Most Black Friday shoppers bagged their deals online this year, with record spending | NPR

² Black Friday reinforces itself as the biggest week in ecommerce | platform.sh

³ Bidnamic

⁴ Global social media statistics research summary | Smart Insights

⁵ Bidnamic

⁶ AI Gets Real for Retailers: 9 Out of 10 Retailers Now Adopting or Piloting AI, Latest NVIDIA Survey Finds | Nvidia