How retail’s biggest event ended in disappointment

Black Friday has long been defined by big crowds, rock-bottom prices, and frenzied consumers willing to bite, scratch, and claw for the best deals of the season. But these days, retail’s biggest holiday looks a little different.

In a world where stores are opening later, foot traffic is flat, online shopping is picking up and Black Friday begins in September, consumers are wary and unsure whether the deals they’re getting are that good.

“Most of the integrity of the event has been lost,” said Mark Cohen, former CEO of Sears Canada and director of retail research at Columbia Business School for 10 years. “Back in the day, Black Friday prices were the best prices you’d ever find…you’ll never see them again. Today, promotional prices get better and better from a consumer perspective as the holiday approaches.”

While Black Friday remains an important day for many retailers and is arguably the most popular shopping day of the year, it is no longer defined by an in-person experience. Millions of shoppers are expected to visit malls, big-box stores and specialty stores on Friday, but millions more are expected to stay home and shop online from their phones and computers.

This represents a shift in strategy for retailers that have long focused their efforts on Black Friday. walmart, target and Macy’s. Some stores, like Kohl’s, start their holiday sales early in the season. Other companies, such as Walmart, space their promotions out at separate events: once in mid-November, twice over the holiday weekend, and finally as a one-day event on Cyber ​​Monday. Many other businesses will be closed for Thanksgiving, but will continue to hold sales online during the holiday.

“I still remember lining up outside stores waiting for the special deals that every retailer advertised,” said Danish Shah, dean and professor of marketing at Georgia State University’s Robinson College of Business. “On the other hand, sales now take place over weeks or even days, and in most cases, consumers conduct sales from the comfort of their own homes through online sales.”

For the past six years, more people have shopped online than in-store on Black Friday, which has remained relatively flat even after the post-COVID-19 surge in foot traffic, according to data from the National Retail Federation and Placer.ai. Placer.ai is an analytics company that uses anonymous data from mobile devices to estimate overall visits to stores.

Since 2021, Black Friday store traffic has consistently been more than 50% higher than the year-round daily average, but store foot traffic the day after Thanksgiving hasn’t actually increased, data from Placer.ai shows.

From 2023 to 2025, the number of Millennial and Gen X consumers who plan to make the majority of their purchases on Black Friday has declined. According to data from the Bank of America Research Institute, Gen Z and baby boomer shoppers remained roughly flat during this period.

Meanwhile, the amount people spend on the so-called Turkey Five (the period of shopping days from Thanksgiving to Cyber ​​Monday) has declined for the second year in a row, according to the NRF. From 2019 to 2024, spending fell by nearly 13%.

This decline is expected to continue this year, with consumers planning to spend an average of 4% less during Turkey 5, according to a recent Deloitte study.

“We’re still going to see a day of highlights from retailers, like doorbusters and additional promotions,” said Tiffany Yeh, managing director and partner in the consumer practice at Boston Consulting Group. “But it’s quieter.”

When the modern version of Black Friday became popular in the 1980s, it took an entire year to execute the plan, Cohen said.

“The trick was to persuade vendors to give us deep discounts on costs so we could create very attractive offers for consumers, which would pay off for the rest of the holiday season,” he recalled. “But it required a tremendous amount of work.”

Retailers needed to choose the perfect product, set the perfect price, and ensure that their promotional plans were not compromised by competitors. Next, they needed to order enough inventory to sell out, but not so quickly that it would cause a riot.

But over time, as Black Friday grew in popularity, retailers began extending the shopping holiday so that this year’s biggest sales tailwind lasted longer than one day. First, stores opened early Friday morning, then they started opening on Thanksgiving Day, and then promotions started the day before. As consumers began to expect discounts on a small number of products, promotions spread to products in all departments.

“In other words, we started diluting the ride to maintain the ride,” Cohen said.

As discounts spread across stores, the operational feats behind inventory and staffing became more difficult to manage, prompting retailers to roll out promotions even earlier, Yeh said.

“It’s always been a challenge to increase staffing so significantly in such a short period of time,” she said. “If it’s just one day, people won’t necessarily want to sign up for it. Whereas if it’s a longer season, you’re more likely to get the team members you need and be able to train them.”

At the same time, consumer habits began to change accordingly.

Online shopping has been growing slowly and steadily for two decades, but its adoption has skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Online sales now outstrip in-store sales, so retailers don’t have to hold as big an in-person show on Black Friday.

Expanding Black Friday to a seasonal event will help consumers spread out their spending, Shah said.

“November and December will be different payment periods for many consumers,” he said. “Being able to spread out your expenses over two pay periods instead of just one pay period makes a difference.”

Of course, there’s some debate about how good of a deal Black Friday discounts really are, especially in an economic downturn when retailers raise prices to offset tariffs and rely heavily on promotions to boost sales.

Sonia Lapinski, head of the global fashion practice at consulting firm AlixPartners, said many consumers are feeling “skeptical” about promotions in general, due to “rampant discounting” across the industry around the holiday shopping season. Lapinski said some promotions this holiday season may disguise price increases by restoring ticket prices to pre-increase levels.

“They had the authority to shop around and look for discounts, and now there’s just a complete lack of trust,” Lapinski said. “They’re tired of it and they lack trust that they’re actually getting the part they deserve.”

For example, brands like gap, Levi Strauss and under armor launched its Black Friday sale on Thanksgiving, and the promotion was on par with those offered earlier in the season.

“The whole idea of ​​urgency is kind of ridiculous and it’s gone,” Cohen said. “Like many headlines purporting to offer a deal, this deal is a form of fraud.”