Black Friday and Cyber Monday might be over, but the real story is only just emerging.

Hi, I'm Clare Bailey, founder of Retail Champion.

In this episode, I'm reflecting back on Black Friday 2025 and Cyber Monday.

This year we saw shoppers spend £3.8B online, yet trust took a hit, margins suffered, and some of the UK’s most established retailers ended up in the headlines for the wrong reasons.

I dig into what Black Friday 2025 actually revealed about today’s shopper — from scepticism around fake discounts to the growing pressure on frontline staff and the operational cracks that show up every year.

If you want clarity on what really happened, how it affects the rest of peak season, and what retailers should change right now, this is the episode for you.

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And it's that time of year again. It's retail's festive game of

chicken. We've seen Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales,

customer behavior, margin pressure, staff pressure

and patterns that keep repeating every year. I'm going to look at what

works, what doesn't and how to survive this festive frenzy

without losing your brand or your sanity.

So let's set the scene and have a look at some of the early insights.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are behind us. And the early signals

are. Yeah, retail reckoning.

Retail reckoning. No space for

dusty shelves. Retail

reckoning owns the floor. The

early signals are as messy as expected and also as

telling. Cutting to the chase, shoppers did spend

big, but potentially not that wisely. And maybe

the discounts weren't as good as promised. UK

consumers poured 3.8 billion

pounds in online spend over just the four day weekend.

That's up 4 to 5% on last year. And the

categories such as jewelry, electronics, clothing

and cosmetics were the ones that did the best. Out in

the high street, it was a bit of a different story because football was

mixed. Some only saw a modest weekend

uplift, but peak Black Friday itself

dipped slightly. Year on year. Then we've got to add to that.

As always, Consumer Watchdog Witch had flagged that

many discounts weren't really that good at all. And

shockingly, of the John Lewis products that they were

tracking, 94% of those were the same price or

cheaper at other times of the year. And the online

retailer varied. They didn't do much better. Apparently.

93% of their deals weren't any cheaper than they could have been

before. This leads to some discomfort.

Shoppers hunting out the bargains might have ended up paying more than if they

perhaps planned ahead. And so this is the new

reality, and this is why I call it Retailers Game of Chicken. Because an

eye catching sale doesn't always equate to real value

and that's what savvy customers are noticing. So what does this

really tell us? Shoppers

undoubtedly are more savvy, more cautious and

more sceptical about what constitutes real value. And if a

deal is a deal, whilst discounts do drive

traffic, it does so whilst margins are pressurized.

And also, if they're not as good as they could be, brand

trust can take a real hit. The winners are those who understand

both consumer behavior and context, not

just those who can do the biggest discounts. I'm going to have a

look into what these numbers really mean for UK retailers this Christmas to

try to spot some early winners. And losers. And also,

what can we learn from this chaos without losing your brand, your margin or your

sanity? So the early

take. Well, again, as mentioned, the winners were definitely

jewelry, electronics, clothing and cosmetics. They were driving the

online spend and they've performed strongest over the Black Friday and

Cyber Monday weekend. Both have benefited from genuine deals

and higher shopper interest. What we do have to remember though is it

isn't just the weekend some retailers ran Black Month,

Black Week and so they were spreading out the demand

across a much longer period of time. And I can say I've been receiving

emails from every man and his dog promoting the

next best Black Friday deal and the next best when it's gone, it's gone off

for ages. It seems the other winners,

those with smart omnichannel strategies. But you can say that all year round

if you've got a solid online click and collect and store experience.

They're basically delivering the service that people want and they

don't have to rely on deep discounts. It just makes it more convenient. But

I'd say that all year round anyway. Nonetheless, they did see

a solid increase in the Black Friday Cyber Monday period.

There's a couple of I wouldn't go as far as to say losers, but

red flags, caution flags, obviously. It's

surprising. I really was shocked when John Lewis and Very were

hitting the headlines for their questionable discounts. And it's a real reminder

that price doesn't just build trust because shoppers spot

things and those deals that aren't deals, especially when they're headline

making, that damages brand credibility. And for a brand like John Lewis, that's

really sad. Then we saw a lot of deep discounting in other sectors

like fashion and electricals and that may have driven

up number of transactions, but it's already

eating into already eroded margins.

And is it going to really benefit them in terms of

what happens after Christmas and Boxing Day sales? Or will it have eaten

up appetite for buying stuff in sale when they've already

effectively had it? Footfall on the peak day was

patchy. It really stood to show that even the big

chains can't completely predict or control shopper

behavior when customers are looking for value and they're timing

their spending. So I guess the

takeaway is it's not who cuts the deepest, it's about who's going

to actually bring the a balance of value, experience

and trust. Because it is so important when

shoppers have got access to so much data and information to make sure

that a deal is a deal. Because shoppers notice when it isn't real. And

that lesson matters more than a single weekend spike in sales, because it may

mean they don't come back. I mean, this sets the stage for a bit of

a deeper look now, from consumer psychology to margin management

staff and operations, so that you can spot the patterns that really matter for

hopefully the rest of the season and beyond. So how did we get here?

Well, we have to accept that we created this monster. Black

Friday used to be a single day. Cyber Monday was just the digital

extension, usually the first Monday in December after

payday, when people had maybe been browsing for what they might like to buy

for Christmas. And so they then shopped online and that was because as

well, they did want to make sure that they got in within the delivery

windows. Pre Covid Christmas promotions

did kick off in late November, but last year

data from the British Retail Consortium and MRI

showed that promotions were starting potentially up to three weeks

earlier and discounts were between 22 and 25%.

My take is that customers are not being difficult when they wait for a deal.

They're behaving exactly as an industry. We've trained them to

behave. And the game of chicken again. Shoppers are holding out for deals,

checking prices, and they're skeptical about value because the fact is,

if you can sell something for such a large discount for X

period of the year, they've got to ask you, well, why

can't you give me a better price all year round? I mean, I completely can

understand why that would be what people might think. So the game is getting

tougher for retailers who do rely on deep discounting.

The other thing to bear in mind is that spending at this time of year

isn't really rational, it's emotional. And we see

panic buying and some fairly questionable choices.

MRI data shows that the footfall spikes and last minute buying

aren't anomalies. It happens year in, year out, but we

don't know exactly when. And there's also a layer of uncertainty

and consumer confidence. This year we've had a tricky budget.

Things are looking a little bit challenging for a lot of

people. So we may see more cautious and more calculated buying

alongside the usual panic driven frenzy. The which

findings tie into this. So whilst customers are

emotional, they're increasingly critical. They want

reassurance that a deal is real. And if you don't provide that

reassurance and the transparency, what

would be an emotional spike in sales can turn into

frustration and people becoming questioning of your

brand. Then it hits your brand trust. Then

we've got to remember that every early Discount eats into margin

and brand authority. And margin is hard come

by. The prices of things have gone up. Retailers are trying

to absorb the cost of their own supply chain increases,

not having to pass on the expense to their shopper.

And it's difficult. BRC

figures are showing that operating margins have halved from 6% in

2018 to 3% in 2024. That's

very low. And early Black Friday promotions, for example, I mean, it gives

us a short term boost in sales, but it risks long term damage. And

essentially if customers believe that waiting equals saving,

then the sense of urgency and value just evaporates and they sit

back and they wait. The other problem as we've touched on, flashy deals that

aren't genuine are going to erode trust, push margins down

and people will start to shop more selectively.

We're also in a position where, you know, we're actually seeing a

national campaign by the Retail Trust to encourage

customers to respect retail employees. I mean, that's a stupid, sad fact.

And there's a staff squeeze. People don't want to work for retail

in the way that perhaps it might have been seen as a handy part time

job with flexible hours in the past. And it's driven by the fact that the

behavior towards people who work in retail has become very

challenging. I don't know what has created this

shift, but there is a lot more abuse and

aggressive behavior from customers to retail staff. Hence

it's really difficult to hire people. And seasonal hiring fell by

nearly 15% year on year in 2024. So what

you've got is a stretched, stressed out team on the shop floor,

which leads the retailer to lost sales, poor customer

experience and potentially lost trust. The difficulty

is your people are your brand. They need to be empowered

and the customers will feel it if they're happy and valued. But

if they feel ignored, the retailer pays the price.

Difficulty is they also need to feel safe and that is

becoming an increasing concern. So even if a

promotional activity like Black Friday does lift online spend, without

the proper trained staff who feel safe and happy at work,

able to deliver the experience, it's more or less a wasted opportunity.

So what do we do to break the cycle? Well, I think the thing is

we've got to stop playing chicken. It's not a we'll break into

sale when we absolutely have to because the customers are sitting waiting

for you to do that. We need to surprise our customers with value, not

just markdowns. Creating moments of joy, Training the team

to sell product by telling stories, not just by

showing prices and you need to protect your brand with

appropriate and time bound discounts. End of

season, end of life, new product coming out that those kind of

sensible and relatable discounts that hold

integrity. If it's a discount for a discount's sake, it can

make people cynical. And again, the witch findings are making this

lesson clear. Authentic value is going to trump eye candy

discounts. And that's where a clever pricing and promotional strategy

beats just random markdowns for the sake of it.

The other aspect is the operational reality

whereby customers do expect things to be a lot more seamless

and a lot more integrated. Click and collect. An online fulfillment.

Great until it doesn't work. In 2023,

40% of shoppers used click and collect, but a third reported they

experienced delays. I think you'd be better off having one

empowered colleague solving problems at the store.

It's far more value adding to the business than 10 discount

codes that drove the traffic in the first place. Early Black Friday

25th, the reports are suggesting that operational failures are still

an issue. This to me reinforces that service and reliability

is going to always outperform pure discounting.

So really, to sum up, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are entertaining,

but I'm not convinced anybody really wins. Shoppers are getting a

deal, but they're losing out on the joy, the

experience. Retailers get the sale, but they're giving away margin

and staff are faced with the fallout. People fighting over

TVs was one of the things I remember from Black Friday several years ago

and it hasn't really got any better. I mean,

yes, the early insights say online spend hit 3.8 billion and

we've seen that the categories that perform best are the sort of

gifting and personal care type stuff. But with discounts

at 16 to 17%, margins are squeezed foot

for patchy. Shoppers are getting more and more savvy, more

and more cautious and more and more skeptical about real

value. And again, to see John Lewis

hitting the headlines for questionable discounts, I mean that undermines

probably one of the most trusted retail brands that we have in the country.

So this Christmas price with purpose

trained people to deliver excellent service and experience.

And remember, these early insights are just to start. We're going to know a lot

more as the season unfolds and what the budget's impact will have been on

consumer confidence. I'm Claire Bailey, the retail champion and this

has been retail reckoning. Yeah, retail

reckoning. Retail reckoning.

No space for dusty shelves. Cause

retail reckoning owns the floor.

Sam.