Research - 02.12.2025 - 10:00
Black Friday marks the start of the Christmas shopping season. According to an analysis by the University of St.Gallen, spending during Black Friday week increased by 49 % compared to the previous week – more than in any other week this year. On Black Friday itself, November 28, 2025, sales even rose by 98 % compared to the corresponding day of the previous week.
Compared to 2024, sales on Black Friday itself were lower (-5 %). Comparing the whole Black-Friday week (Sunday to Saturday) in 2025 to the same week in 2024, we find that the total turnover did not change much. Although the turnover has been more spread out during Black-Friday week, the additional turnover on the other weekdays in the Black-Friday week did not compensate the smaller turnover on Black Friday itself.
Figure 1(1) illustrates these findings by displaying the indexed nominal daily turnover. A value of 100 indicates that the daily turnover is equal to the average daily turnover in the merchant category Retail: Other Goods in November 2024. The indexed value for the Black Friday on November 28, 2025, is 209.8, which is 5 % smaller than the value of 220.3 on the Black Friday in the previous year on November 29, 2024.
Accounting for inflation between November 2024 and 2025 may imply a slightly smaller gap of expenditures in real terms because prices fell in some important expenditure categories. For clothing and shoes that are contained in the category Retail: Other Goods, for example, the inflation rate between October 2024 and 2025 was -0.36 %.(2)
Similarly to previous years, the Black Friday 2025 also saw more sales in e-commerce. Figure 1 shows that the share of e-commerce in the Retail: Other Goods category increased to 24 % on Friday November 28, 2025, compared to 15 % in the previous week. Compared to the previous year, however, the share of sales on Black Friday at the point of sale versus e-commerce has remained stable.
These figures suggest that city centers and shopping malls continue to be important prime retail locations, despite the opportunity of shopping via e-commerce. The turnover increase on the weekdays before Black Friday is a continuation of the trend already observed in previous years, indicating that retailers offer price discounts already well before Black Friday either to avoid too much congestion or for marketing purposes.
The evaluations of the Monitoring Consumption Switzerland are based on payments with credit and debit cards as well as mobile payment methods at the point of sale and in e-commerce.
(1) BlackFriday2025 | Tableau Public
(2) Daily sales in non-food retail with payment cards (debit/credit cards) and mobile payments, November 2020-2025
Image: Adobe Stock / Prostock-studio
