Did Tariffs and Economic Uncertainty Ruin BFCM?

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are not only two of the most important days of the year for DTC brands and ecommerce, but they're also one of the most important weekends for the economy as a whole.

Heading into the biggest shopping weekend of the year, there were a ton of questions on everyone’s mind:

• Would BFCM be as big as last year? Bigger? A shell of its normal self?

• Would tariffs impact supply chains?

• Would margin pressures lead to lesser discounts?

• Would shoppers show up to buy amid all the economic uncertainty?

Well, the numbers are in and NO, tariffs, margin pressures, and economic uncertainty did not ruin the BFCM party. Let me explain.

Sales Were Nearly Identical to Last Year

Despite a ton of external factors working against it, BFCM’s revenue and order volumes were nearly identical to last year’s when looking at our 2025 index of Intelligems’ brands.

Sales were down very slightly on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and nearly identical on Saturday and Sunday.

Black Friday revenue landed at 443% of a typical day. Last year it was 454%. A 2% decline from last year. However, the Saturday and Sunday landed at almost identical spikes to 2024.

Cyber Monday stands out when looking at orders. 2025 landed at 355% of a typical day vs 390% in 2024. While brands didn’t sell as much on Monday, their revenue numbers were very similar to last year. 377% in 2025 vs 389% in 2024.

Overall sales numbers were very similar to last year, despite all the added pressures and uncertainty.

It’s important to remember that our index is only Shopify Brands selling online. Other outlets are reporting stronger sales than last year, but after accounting for inflation, sales are probably closer to flat.

Brands Were Just As Willing to Discount

After Labor Day, I published an article in a Kno Commerce ebook predicting that BFCM would be just as big this year but that brands would start promotions later, and offer softer discounts.

I thought this because brands are under margin pressures from multiple places, and over Labor Day this year, we saw brands reduce their level of discounting.

But BFCM proved me wrong. Brands were just as willing to incentivize and discount this year as they were last year and the promotions started on the typical markers:

• The first Monday of November

• The start of Thanksgiving week

• Black Friday and Cyber Monday

This was based on what we saw over the Labor Day weekend, but BFCM is a tricky one to predict. I can say, based on our index, my initial prediction was wrong.

Brands were just as willing to incentivize and promote this year as they were last. Average Unit Price dropped 8-9% during the promotional period. Price levels sat at 92% of typical pricing on Black Friday. The same depth as 2024.

The BFCM Weekend is HUGE Compared to Typical Days

While overall the weekend was more or less the same as last year for ecommerce brands, we can’t overstate how big these four days are for online retailers. Here’s what we saw each day across our index vs a brand’s typical day of sales.

Black Friday was the biggest day of the weekend, with the median brand doing 460% more sales than a typical day, and one standout brand doing 5,444% more sales than a typical day.

The Saturday and the Sunday were similar, with the median brand doing just under 300% of a typical day.

Finally, Cyber Monday (the online sales day) was better than Saturday and Sunday, but saw significantly fewer sales than Black Friday.

If you’re an existing Intelligems customer, you can see how you stacked up individually compared to your sales last year plus our index. Just log into the Intelligems app and navigate to the BFCM Tracker.

You can look at performance across the weekend and through the rest of the holiday season.

We Will Continue to Monitor Through the Holiday Season

BFCM is the opening act. Not the finale. We will continue monitoring the Intelligems Holiday Index through Christmas. Will momentum hold?

Will discounting deepen or ease as December unfolds?

The data will tell us, and we'll share what we find.

If you're an Intelligems customer, see how you benchmarked against last year. Log in to view your performance data and compare your results to the index.