What the 2025 campaign data suggests for 2026
Do not assume you need to wait until Friday
66.7% of stores in the sample had already reduced at least some prices before Black Friday.
Decide what belongs in the sale
Collections and individual products were targeted far more often than the entire catalog.
Use common reductions as reference points
20% and 30% reductions appeared frequently, but the data does not show whether they performed better.
Plan the end before launch
66.4% of campaigns included a scheduled rollback rather than leaving restoration entirely manual.
Preview the final selection
65.7% of campaigns affected 100 variants or fewer, reflecting how often merchants used targeted selections.
Two-thirds of stores reduced prices before Black Friday
Black Friday fell on November 28 in 2025, but many merchants did not wait until Friday to change their prices.
Looking at each store’s first observed price reduction during Black Friday week:
| First observed price reduction | Share of stores |
|---|---|
| Monday–Wednesday | 42.9% |
| Thursday | 23.8% |
| Black Friday | 22.6% |
| Saturday–Cyber Monday | 10.7% |
Taken together, 66.7% of stores had already made at least one price reduction before Black Friday.
Thursday and Black Friday were the most common individual days for stores to make their first observed price reduction, but pricing activity was already substantial earlier in the week.
That does not mean 66.7% of Black Friday campaigns officially started early. We can observe pricing activity, but not the merchant’s marketing intent. Some stores may also have started their promotions before the period included in this analysis.
The safer conclusion is that price reductions were already common before Black Friday itself. For Black Friday 2026, there is no reason to assume that every pricing campaign needs to start on Friday morning.
20% and 30% were the most common price reductions
Among campaigns where we could identify a percentage reduction:
- A 20% reduction appeared in 21.2%
- A 30% reduction appeared in 16.2%
- A 50% reduction appeared in 10.2%
The median reduction was 25%.
The useful observation is simply that 20–30% reductions appeared frequently, while deeper 50% reductions were less common. Your own discount still needs to make sense for your margins, products, and promotion.
Most campaigns did not discount the whole store
A storewide discount might sound like the default Black Friday setup, but that was not what we saw most often.
Across the campaigns analyzed:
- 41.4% targeted collections
- 34.8% targeted specific products
- 11.8% targeted the entire store
- The remaining campaigns used selected variants or filtering rules
Only about 11.8% applied the pricing change across the entire store.
This does not prove that targeted campaigns perform better. It does show that many merchants chose to segment their Black Friday pricing rather than apply one rule to every product.
For Black Friday 2026, it may be worth deciding what actually belongs in the sale before choosing the reduction. A store could use different pricing for seasonal collections, clearance products, selected high-margin products, or products that are already on sale.
A Black Friday promotion does not have to mean one percentage across the entire catalog.
Most campaigns were relatively targeted
Black Friday pricing was also frequently applied to relatively small groups of variants: 65.7% of campaigns affected 100 variants or fewer.
This fits with the targeting data above. Merchants often worked with collections, individual products, or other selected groups instead of changing every price in the catalog at once.
A single store can also run several campaigns during the same promotion—for example, separate campaigns for different collections or different reduction levels.
This makes previewing the final selection especially useful. A targeting mistake can otherwise put products into the sale that were never meant to be included.
Many campaigns were prepared close to launch
Preparation times varied considerably.
About 35.4% of scheduled campaigns with usable timing data were created at least one day before their planned start. That also means most were configured less than a day before launch.
This does not tell us that preparing earlier leads to better results. But for a high-traffic event such as Black Friday, setting up pricing ahead of time gives you more time to verify:
- The products and variants included
- The new Price
- The Compare-at price
- Exclusions
- Start and end timing
- Whether another app, import, or integration may overwrite the same prices
The important part is not following a particular preparation window. It is leaving enough time to verify what will actually change.
Two-thirds of campaigns had a scheduled rollback
One of the clearest patterns in the data was how merchants planned the end of their sales: 66.4% of campaigns had a scheduled rollback.
Rollback activity was particularly concentrated around the end of Cyber Monday and the following day. This suggests that, for many merchants, restoring regular pricing was part of the campaign setup rather than something left to handle manually afterward.
That is important when a Black Friday campaign changes actual Shopify product prices. Imagine a product normally costs $100 and is reduced by 20%.
During the sale:
- Price becomes $80
- Compare-at price can be set to $100
When the sale ends, increasing $80 by 20% would produce $96—not the original $100. A safer rollback restores the saved original values instead of trying to reverse the reduction mathematically.
For a detailed workflow, see How to Schedule Shopify Sale Prices.
Not every campaign continued through all of Cyber Monday
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are often grouped together as BFCM, but merchants did not all use the same sale window.
Among campaigns that had already started before Cyber Monday, 26.6% were still scheduled to remain active through December 2 or later. Many others ended sooner.
The data does not point to one standard Black Friday campaign length. Some merchants ran pricing changes earlier in the week, some focused on Black Friday itself, and some continued beyond Cyber Monday.
The practical takeaway is to decide the end of the sale deliberately rather than treating it as an afterthought.
How to set up a Shopify Black Friday sale
If your Black Friday promotion changes the actual product price, a common setup is:
| Before sale | During sale | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $100 | $80 |
| Compare-at price | — | $100 |
The customer pays the reduced Price, while the Compare-at price can show the previous regular price on storefront themes that support it.
For the complete workflow, see:
- How to Run a Shopify Sale
- How to Schedule Shopify Sale Prices
- Shopify Compare-at Price: How It Works
With Springify Bulk Price Editor, you can target products or collections, preview affected variants, schedule pricing changes, and restore saved original prices when the sale ends.
Guide FAQ
What was the most common Black Friday price reduction?
Among campaigns where a percentage reduction could be identified, 20% appeared most often, in 21.2% of campaigns. A 30% reduction appeared in 16.2%, while the median reduction was 25%. This describes merchant behavior, not campaign performance.
Did most Shopify stores wait until Black Friday to reduce prices?
No. In this sample, 66.7% of stores had already made at least one observed price reduction before Black Friday. That does not necessarily mean their official promotions started early, because the data captures pricing activity rather than marketing intent.
Did most Black Friday campaigns apply to the whole store?
No. Only 11.8% targeted the entire store. Collections accounted for 41.4% of campaigns and specific products for 34.8%; the rest used selected variants or filtering rules.
How many campaigns had a scheduled rollback?
66.4% of the analyzed campaigns had a scheduled rollback. This indicates that many merchants planned how regular prices would be restored as part of the campaign setup.
What is the safest way to reverse a percentage price reduction?
Restore the saved original values instead of applying the same percentage in reverse. A $100 price reduced by 20% becomes $80, but increasing $80 by 20% produces $96 rather than the original $100.