This year’s Black Friday is shaping up to be one of the most strategically demanding holiday seasons retailers have faced recently. While U.S. holiday sales are forecast to surpass $1 trillion for the first time (Reuters, citing the National Retail Federation), growth is slowing, consumer sentiment is cooling, tariffs are raising costs, and shoppers are entering the season with a mix of caution, practicality, and heightened expectations for value.
Retailers across the U.S. and EU now operate in a market defined by price sensitivity, deal-seeking behavior, and an unprecedented level of AI-enabled shopping intelligence. And while Black Friday remains a global spending ritual, the rules for winning it have fundamentally changed.
Below, we unpack the new consumer mindset, the economic forces shaping demand, and what leading retailers are doing to compete, along with a look at the pricing strategies that will drive profitability rather than margin erosion this season.
The 2025 Black Friday Consumer: Cautious, Strategic, and Armed With AI
Across the U.S. and Europe, consumers are shopping with more discipline and more information than ever. McKinsey’s latest U.S. ConsumerWise research shows sentiment down 35% from last year’s peak, driven by inflation, tariffs, and tightened household budgets. Spending intentions for discretionary categories remain negative, especially among lower-income shoppers.
At the same time, BCG’s 2025 Black Friday Report reveals a new behavior reshaping the holiday landscape: consumers are shopping strategically and using GenAI tools to do it:
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48% of global shoppers (51% in the U.S.) plan to use tools like ChatGPT or Gemini to compare prices, track deals, and plan purchases.
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79% of Black Friday-aware consumers intend to shop the event (up 4 points YoY).
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77% will delay purchases earlier in the season to capture end-of-year discounts.
Consumers aren’t just looking for deals — they’re actively engineering the optimal moment to buy. This creates a razor-thin margin for retailers: mispricing an item by even a small percentage can mean losing visibility in AI-driven comparison engines.
A Tale of Two Markets: U.S. Caution vs. Europe’s Measured Optimism
While U.S. consumers remain highly price-conscious, EU shoppers tell a more stable story. Across France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK (EU-5), McKinsey finds:
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70% of consumers will maintain or increase spending this year (five points higher than the U.S.)
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Inflation concerns are softening in most eurozone markets
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Omnichannel shopping dominates across all countries
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The UK shows the highest early-shopping behavior, while Italy remains most Black Friday-driven
This divergence matters. Retailers with multinational footprints cannot deploy uniform Black Friday strategies across all regions. Pricing, promotional depth, and timing must reflect local sentiment, category behavior, and country-specific elasticity.
Consumer Behavior Meets Cost Reality: Economic Forces Shaping Demand
While the abovementioned demand signals reveal an increasingly complex consumer environment, they represent only one side of the equation. Just as shoppers become more deliberate, price-aware, and AI-assisted, retailers are grappling with higher tariffs, increased cost of goods, and shrinking markdown flexibility.
CBS News reports that the average U.S. tariff rate has increased sevenfold this year, reaching 16.6% and driving cost-of-goods up 20–50% in many categories. These pressures have forced retailers — especially those sourcing heavily from Asia — into a high-stakes tradeoff:
“Discount too deeply and sacrifice margin or hold prices and risk losing price-conscious shoppers who are actively benchmarking discounts across channels and AI-powered comparison engines.”
As a result, many retailers are moving away from across-the-board markdowns in favor of surgical, selective discounting — exactly what retail analysts have urged for years.
A clear example is Walmart, one of the largest U.S. retailers, whose 2025 Black Friday strategy highlights how major players are adapting.
This year Walmart has introduced three staged Deals Events across November and December, aligning with earlier shopping behavior documented by McKinsey and BCG, and giving the company room to manage inventory, pricing, and messaging with more precision.
Walmart+ members receive five hours of early access to each event, reinforcing the value of loyalty programs at a time when shoppers are increasingly selective. Walmart’s discounting strategy is highly surgical: deep cuts, sometimes up to 60% off, on key traffic-driving brands like Dyson, Apple, TCL, and LEGO, combined with thousands of under-$20 deals. This strategy aligns with affordability anchors and the “budget-first” mindset documented by Reuters and McKinsey.
Walmart’s approach isn’t blanket discounting. It’s targeted, category-specific, and designed to reinforce credibility around price leadership, which is exactly the type of margin-aware strategy retailers must adopt to stay competitive under cost pressure.
Black Friday Pricing Architecture: The Retail Executive’s Framework for Peak Season Dominance
As the promotional landscape becomes more complex, retailers need a new blueprint for making price decisions under pressure. Our “Black Friday Pricing Architecture: The Retail Executive’s Framework for Peak Season Dominance” executive white paper outlines the frameworks leading retailers are using to protect margin and deliver trustworthy value.
Here’s a preview of a few pillars explored in detail:
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Move from percentage-led promotions to affordability-led value
Consumers evaluate final prices, not discounts. Retailers must benchmark offers against real affordability thresholds.
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Use role-based and lifecycle-driven discounting
Not all SKUs drive traffic, value perception, or margin equally. Matching discount depth to product role prevents unnecessary margin loss.
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Simulate promo outcomes before launch
Elasticity-based modeling reveals where deeper discounts are essential and where smaller adjustments deliver comparable results.
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Build transparent, consistent pricing across channels
Shoppers expect fairness and clarity. Erratic or channel-specific logic erodes trust quickly.
To explore the full framework, industry-specific tactics, and actionable pricing architectures, download the complete guide.
How Competera Supports Retailers This Holiday Season
As shoppers become more strategic and as cost pressures rise, retailers need pricing intelligence that adapts to fast-changing market conditions.
Competera’s Pricing Platform helps enterprise retailers:
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Understand 20+ demand drivers including elasticity, competitors, lifecycle, product role, and basket impact.
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Run scenario simulations to determine the optimal discount depth before campaigns go live.
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Deliver AI-driven pricing recommendations with full human oversight.
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Maintain omnichannel consistency across store, online, and app experiences.
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Protect margin, CLTV, and price perception with real-time precision.
When every discount becomes a high-stakes decision, Competera gives retailers the intelligence and confidence to execute Black Friday at scale without sacrificing profitability.
