Your best customers have already priced in your Black Friday discount

Black Friday shoppers have learned the rules. Which? found 83% of tracked deals were matched or beaten outside the sale period, and DHL found only half of shoppers trust Black Friday pricing, against the 69% of retailers who think they do. In his latest piece, Phill Manson argues that a sitewide discount now mostly buys the purchases your best customers had already planned, and sets out what still moves a customer who has priced you in. With Q4 plans still open, it’s worth ten minutes before the calendar locks. Our white paper on BFCM discount strategy, The Discount You Can’t Take Back, follows in October.

By Phill Manson, Founder and Managing Director, VALIX

9/28/20265 min read

Every year I watch brands build a Black Friday offer for a customer who no longer exists: the one who sees “was £80, now £56” and takes it at face value.

Which? tracked 175 products across eight major UK retailers for the year around Black Friday 2024. 83% were the same price or cheaper at least once outside the four-week sale period, and on Black Friday itself not one was at its lowest price of the year.

Retailers haven’t caught up. DHL’s 2025 eCommerce Trends Report, which surveyed 24,000 shoppers, found 69% of retailers believe customers trust their Black Friday offers. Only 50% of shoppers say they do. That’s a 19-point gap between what the promotions calendar assumes and what the customer actually thinks.

Which? was tracking TVs and vacuum cleaners at big-box retailers, not your brand. That matters less than you’d hope. Shoppers learn the lesson once and apply it everywhere.

Scepticism hasn’t killed Black Friday. It’s changed who turns up.

PwC’s forecast for Black Friday 2025 put UK spend at £6.4bn. The share of people interested fell from 53% to 46%, while planned spend among those taking part rose 13% to £262 a head. Fewer people, bigger baskets, clearer intent. That isn’t an impulse crowd. It’s a crowd with a list.

Klaviyo’s data shows what that list does to you. In Sugar High!, James Hurman’s research with Klaviyo and ProfitPeak, bestsellers and core range took 90% of revenue during sitewide sales, and revenue in the two to four weeks afterwards fell an average 27% below the brand’s normal baseline. Shoppers go into a sale knowing what they want, buy it cheaper, then go quiet.

So your sitewide discount isn’t creating demand. It’s the date your best customers pencilled in to buy your hero product at a lower price.

What still moves a sceptic

A customer who has priced you in can only be surprised by something they can’t compare-shop. That rules out the banner and leaves two options.

The first is an offer that’s clearly about them. Someone who has bought from you three times this year doesn’t need 25% off the thing they were going to buy in December anyway. Early access to a new range, or a bundle built round what they already own, gives them something the banner can’t: no “was” price to check, and no reason to wait for next November.

The second is holding your nerve on the customers who’d buy at full price. That’s where segmentation pays. Tier your file by recency, frequency and monetary value from purchase history (orders you already hold, not opens) and you can see who needs a price to change their mind and who needs nothing more than a reminder. The ABLE-RFM+ model we build programmes around starts there, but any honest RFM cut will show you the shape.

Then put the discount budget behind new and lapsed customers, where a price might genuinely change the decision. Take it off the people who were coming anyway.

The scorecard that matters

None of this means stop discounting. The same research found brands that simply cut their discount rates saw growth roughly halve, because customers trained to wait just wait longer. The point is to stop paying your most loyal customers to do what they’d already planned.

Judge Black Friday on what it did to January, not on the Friday-night dashboard. If the honest answer is “pulled forward revenue we’d have had anyway, at a lower margin”, you didn’t run a promotion. You ran a price cut for people who never asked for one.

Sources

Which?, “Don’t believe the hype: Most Black Friday deals the same price or cheaper at other times of the year”, 25/11/2025. which.co.uk

DHL Group, “DHL reveals Black Friday trends” (DHL eCommerce Trends Report: Shopper Edit, 24,000 shoppers, 24 markets), 25/11/2025. group.dhl.com

PwC UK, “UK consumers set to spend £6.4bn this Black Friday”, 21/11/2025. pwc.co.uk

James Hurman for Klaviyo, “Your discounting strategy is making you poorer. Here’s the data to prove it.” (based on Sugar High!, Klaviyo global dataset and ProfitPeak analysis of 176 Australian ecommerce brands), 20/05/2026. klaviyo.com

Frequently asked questions

Are Black Friday deals actually cheaper than at other times of the year?

Often not. Which? tracked 175 products across eight major UK retailers for the year around Black Friday 2024 and found 83% were the same price or cheaper at least once outside the four-week sale period. On Black Friday itself, none of the tracked deals was at its lowest price of the year.

Do shoppers trust Black Friday discounts?

About half do. DHL’s 2025 eCommerce Trends Report, covering 24,000 shoppers in 24 markets, found 50% of shoppers completely or mostly trust Black Friday offers, while 69% of retailers believe their customers trust them. That 19-point gap suggests many brands overestimate how persuasive a sitewide “was/now” claim still is.

Is Black Friday spending falling in the UK?

Not overall. PwC UK forecast £6.4bn of Black Friday spend for 2025, up 1.5% on 2024. Fewer people were interested (46%, down from 53%), but those taking part planned to spend £262 each, up 13%. The audience is smaller and more deliberate rather than disappearing.

Does a sitewide Black Friday sale bring in new customers?

Less than most brands assume. In Klaviyo and ProfitPeak’s Sugar High! research, 68% of discounted orders were placed by returning customers, against 11% of full-price orders, and bestsellers and core range took 90% of revenue during sitewide sales. Much of the discount goes to existing customers buying products they already wanted.

What happens to sales after a Black Friday promotion?

They tend to dip. The same Sugar High! research found revenue in the two to four weeks after a discount period fell an average 27% below the brand’s normal baseline, because customers brought forward purchases they would have made anyway.

How should ecommerce brands target Black Friday offers at existing customers?

By customer value rather than one sitewide claim. Build tiers from recency, frequency and monetary value in purchase history. Reserve price-led offers for new and lapsed customers, where a discount can change the decision, and give high-value repeat customers something they can’t compare-shop, such as early access or a bundle built around what they already own.

What is RFM segmentation and why does it matter for Black Friday?

RFM scores each customer on how recently they bought, how often they buy and how much they spend, using order data a brand already holds. For Black Friday it shows who needs a price incentive and who would buy at full price anyway. VALIX’s ABLE-RFM+ model builds on RFM with acquisition, brand, loyalty and engagement signals.

Should brands stop discounting on Black Friday altogether?

No. Sugar High! found brands that simply cut their discount rates saw growth roughly halve, because customers trained to wait for a sale tend to wait longer. The better approach is to taper and target: fewer blanket discounts, and discounts aimed at the customers they actually move.

How do you measure whether a Black Friday promotion worked?

Judge it on incremental contribution after discount and cost, not weekend revenue. Agree the measure with finance before the event, use a holdout group that doesn’t receive the offer where possible, and look at trading in the weeks after the sale as well as during it.

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