Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) are fast approaching, and for merchants using platforms like Shopify, this four-day retail extravaganza presents an opportunity to boost sales and acquire new customers. But first, what exactly is BFCM, and why is it so important for e-commerce businesses? In this guide, we’ll explore what BFCM means, break down effective marketing strategies for BFCM 2025, and provide you with strategies to help you optimize results on Shopify and other platforms as well.
What Does BFCM Mean?
BFCM is the abbreviation for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the two biggest shopping holidays in a year. Black Friday, which comes the day after Thanksgiving in the U.S., has traditionally been a day to score in-store deals, with Cyber Monday dedicated to online discounts. Collectively, these things make a shopping phenomenon that offers consumers steep, steep discounts.
Moreover, this period is a goldmine for sellers to increase their sale, add new customers, retain old ones and even to get rid of stagnated products from the stock. This quarter also represents BFCM, one of the biggest events on the retail calendar. Black Friday 2023 saw an all-time high of $9.8 billion in online sales, and Cyber Monday sales climbed 9.6% to $12.4 billion. In 2024, there was another record with $10.8 billion for Black Friday in the US and $13.3 billion, a 7.3% rise year over year, for Cyber Monday. We can expect sales numbers to continue to rise in 2025.
These figures demonstrate that BFCM presents a significant opportunity for businesses to leverage and drive revenue.
Origins of Black Friday
The term Black Friday has its roots in the United States in the mid-20th century. The phrase “Black Friday” was first used by police in Philadelphia in the 1950s, describing the enormous crowds and heavy traffic that filled the city the day after Thanksgiving, when throngs of people flooded stores to begin their holiday shopping. In the 1980s, retailers transformed “Black Friday” into a term that signified the transition from being "in the red" (loss) to being "in the black" (profit), identifying the day as the turning point of their fiscal year.
Check out this ad from 1959:
The Birth of Cyber Monday
Beginning in the early 2000s, as internet usage exploded, online retailers observed an uptick in e-commerce activity on the Monday after Thanksgiving. The term “Cyber Monday” was introduced by the National Retail Federation in 2005 to spark this trend and encourage even more shoppers to shop online. It offered a quick and convenient, digital alternative to the sellout Black Friday shopping, giving consumers the ability to window shop holiday deals from the comfort of home. Cyber Monday grew rapidly, with online sales figures setting records every year.
Evolution to BFCM
Online shopping made its way into the picture, and sellers began offering Black Friday deals through the weekend and into Cyber Monday, and BFCM (Black Friday Cyber Monday) was born. It’s called an extended sales event, which has now turned into multiple days with both online and in-person shopping. The shift has also been spearheaded by the formation of e-commerce platforms like those offered by Shopify, providing small businesses, and even large businesses, with the ability to capitalize on sales through this time.
Today, BFCM is a worldwide phenomenon, with countries joining in at very significant discounts. While brands are getting better at personalized marketing strategies, loyalty programs, and online deals, BFCM is still a key milestone in retail and e-commerce strategies.
Take a look at how many people are looking to enter this store at Black Friday:
Why BFCM 2025 will be important in E-commerce During the Holiday Shopping Season
In the world of direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands, particularly for those leveraging Shopify and other similar platforms, the holiday shopping season — and BFCM in particular — can be a major driver of growth. Here’s why BFCM matters:
Sales Surge: The rise of online shopping and the height of BFCM accounts for a large percentage of annual sales. 2023 Shopify merchants experienced a +24% sales lift on BFCM, generating $21.8 billion globally.
Customer Acquisition: Special BFCM promos garner new customers with deals and referral programs
Inventory Management: BFCM helps businesses clear out stuck items in their inventory and make room for new products in the coming year.
Brand Loyalty: Repeat customers are more active and tend to spend more. Not only is BFCM a great opportunity to enhance the loyalty program by providing members with exclusive deals,
When is BFCM 2025 exactly?
In the United States, BFCM happens on the Friday immediately following Thanksgiving until the Monday thereafter. This year, Black Friday falls on Nov. 29, and Cyber Monday on Dec. 2.
Preparing for BFCM 2025: A Guide for Maximizing Sales
With BFCM around the corner on November 29th (Black Friday) and December 2nd (Cyber Monday) a solid marketing plan is essential. Here are the main steps to setting your Shopify store up for success.
Start Planning in Advance
Start your planning 2–3 months out for BFCM marketing campaigns. A look back at last year’s campaign data can mark trends in what worked and what didn’t work for your sales and marketing efforts.
- Set Clear Goals: Establish what you want to accomplish, such as sales volume or customer acquisition metrics.
- Holiday Shopping Season Preparation Plan: Make sure customer service teams are prepared for increased traffic and potential problems.
Grow Your Audience Early
Essentially, warmed lists generate more sales during BFCM, allowing you to maximize your sales potential. Use pop-ups on your website, social media ads, and influencer partnerships to drive up email and SMS sign-ups.
Inventory Management
Another important aspect to make your BFCM campaign successful is to have everything well managed in your inventory. Below are a few more tips for going through your inventory more effectively:
Assess Stock Levels and Forecast Inventory: Assess old sales records and research the industry patterns to forecast demand for your products over BFCM. This will aid in making informed decisions on how much stock to hold.
Keep Enough Inventory: You must have enough inventory to meet the demand condition but need to be proactive enough to avoid overstocking to minimize commonly wasted stock and storage costs. So find that sweet spot because this is and will be were good things tend to happen when it comes to sales without having to waste more money than really necessary.
Implement a JIT (Just in Time) inventory system: Try to order and get your inventory just in time for when you need it, which reduces storage fees and the risk of running out of stock. You can use this method, to be flexible and responsive to your customer's needs.
Use an inventory management software: An inventory management software can help you keep track of your inventory levels, track stock movements, and automate the inventory management process. This will simplify your operations and give you live insight into your stock levels.
Black Friday Cyber Monday Marketing Strategies for 2025
By using a range of targeted approaches as detailed in this post, you can make your BFCM campaign more effective and encourage the engagement of prospective & existing customers while leveraging the increase in online sales during Black Friday leading into Cyber Monday.
Personalized Deals for Repeat Customers
Usually, subtle customer behaviors bring out the most conversion rates. Reward loyalty programs members with unique discounts, early accesses, or double loyalty points throughout the period. It also demonstrates that exclusive offers and rewards make loyal customers feel valued and, in turn, return several times to buy in BFCM.
Leverage Referral and Affiliate Marketing Campaigns to Attract New Customers in your Online Stores
Referral programs can help your existing customers refer friends. Services such as Friendbuy streamline the referral process, lets you provide rewards for successful referrals and use contests and tiered systems to widen your reach.
Simplify the Buying Process
To increase conversions and reduce cart abandonment during BFCM, a simpler and easier checkout experience on your online store is a must. Consider implementing:
- One-click checkout solutions for repeat customers.
- Guest Checkout — This can help you to reduce the uncertainty among new customers.
- Train users on checkout steps with indicators.
Leverage Personalization
According to research, personalization can lead to a revenue increase of around 10–30%. Tailor offers based on previous browsing and purchasing behavior, segment your email and SMS lists, and use personalized retargeting ads to lure back potential customers who viewed certain products in your shop.
Teach Your Customers to Buy Differently
It can be difficult for online stores to stand out during BFCM, so consider going further than regular discounts:
- Encouraging customers to spend more with bundled product or free gifts
- Such limited-edition products drive urgency and create exclusivity.
- Longer return periods can ease purchase anxiety.
Category-Specific Discounts
Category-Specific Discounts: Offering discounts on specific categories is another effective sales driver and customer attraction method during BFCM. Focusing on particular product categories allows businesses to create targeted promotions that speak to their audience directly. A clothing store could have major discounts on winter coats, enticing shoppers to upgrade their winter clothes. Likewise, an electronics store could offer discounts on gaming consoles, thrilling techies. Coupled with the promotional value, which can promote product sales, promote the sales of specific products and reduce the company's inventory turnover cycle, farmers are more welcomed.
Special Offers and Bundles
Another great way to boost sales and attract customers during BFCM is by creating special offers and bundles. This is ideal for businesses to create FOMO (fear of missing out) not only with exclusively offered deals but also via bundled products within a limited time frame. For instance, a store can implement a bundle offer for their one of the best selling product, like a smartphone with accessories included, or a limited-time offer on a product category, such as a buy one, get one free offer on all skincare products. Unique offers and bunds are an efficient way for the companies to attract more sales during this time when the consumers are increasingly attentive.
Cutting-edge BFCM Email Marketing Strategies
Overall, email marketing still acts as a good channel for BFCM. Here are a few email strategies for 2025:
Audience Segmentation: normalizing campaigns across different customer segments during BFCM can drive personalized offer push to each thumbnail segment boosting engagement measures as well as conversions. The first thing to do is segment customers based on their purchase history — offer loyal shoppers unique deals, and returning discounts for customers that left carts behind. Loyally leverage engagement levels by providing active subscribers time-sensitive deals while re-engaging inactive subscribers with other attractive offers. Send cart-abandoners reminders of items they failed to purchase and exclusive discounts on recently viewed products based on browsing behavior. With demographics and location data, you can target offers, so that they are relevant between countries and age groups. Finally, differentiate based on customer interests by tailoring promotions to desired product categories or wish lists.
Early Access: Give your email subscribers — particularly any returning customers — early access to sales or exclusive promotions to get them excited. Say what this means is they're able to shop the best deals without the crowds and that the offer feels like a true reward for their loyalty. First, shorten the early access period to instill urgency. These can include phrases such as “24-Hour Early Access” or even a countdown timer added to the email. By providing helpful content — such as holiday gift guides or tips on how to style a particular product — emails can be more meaningful and offer subscriber value that keeps your brand front and center.
Abandoned Shopping Cart Reminders: If someone has items left in their carts, remind them. A little discount is a good way to persuade them to finalize their purchase. BFCM deals are only for a limited time — emphasize this. Those sentences include “Don’t miss out! or “Only a few hours left!” can help. If stock is low, also mention that in the email to create a “fear of missing out” (FOMO) effect. As in, “Only a handful of left in stock!”
Countdown Timers: Adding timer to your emails build urgency and lets customers know the clock is ticking on your amazing deals
Shopify-Specific BFCM Tips
Make good use of Shopify’s features to maximize your BFCM performance:
Optimize Your Mobile Experience: In BFCM 2023, 75.7% of sales were made on mobile device. First, check page load speeds on mobile to ensure that people are able to access your pages quickly; slow pages can send shoppers streaming from your store. Test the complete user journey — from the homepage to checkout — ensuring that navigation is intuitive, buttons are easy to find and engagements such as search and filters work seamlessly on mobile screens too. Ensure that the checkout process is a breeze, with forms available for autofill, mobile wallets and many other options to pay for their order. Finally, review emails and push notifications on mobile devices to make sure they’re aesthetically pleasing and work on every capacity screen. Because the BFCM rush is about to begin – Ensure your Shopify store has a seamless mobile experience that engages shoppers and maximizes conversions!
Leverage Shopify Apps for Campaign Management: Shopify’s app marketplace contains various tools for email automation, inventory management, and personalized marketing. Getting started, and some of the most popular ones must have under the store in order to feel completeness aspect include for Pop-ups and Email Captures (example: Privy or Optimonk), Push Notifications (example: PushOwl for web), Advanced Email & SMS Automation (Klaviyo), and your navigation system through AI (Rapid Search).
Now test and optimize your site: Perform load tests as the first step to ensure that your site can handle the surge in visitors without crashing or slowing down. Improve page load speed with image compression, minimal code or a fast-loading content delivery network (CDN). Test your checkout process to eliminate potential failure points, such as payment errors or poorly loading cart pages. Optimize your site navigation for deals to be easily found by customers and ensure your mobile experience is seamless, as many readers in particular will shop with their phones. Finally, be sure to closely monitor site performance during the event so you can quickly address any issues that may arise.
Use Data To Your Advantage: Shopify’s analytics provide a real-time look at your traffic sources, sales, and customer behavior, allowing you to tailor your marketing strategy through the weekend.
Essential Metrics for Measuring BFCM Performance
Tracking metrics — beyond sales numbers — will allow you to become more effective in your BFCM marketing strategy:
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): How much are you spending per new customer you acquire during Black Friday Cyber Monday? Create a referral campaign for increasing referrals, therefore reducing CAC.
Average Order Value (AOV): Promote bundled offers or tiered discounts to increase your AOV, thus expanding your overall earnings.
Conversion Rate: See how well your promotions are turning visits into purchases. Also, A/B testing can aid in fine-tuning the effectiveness of different offers.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): Build long-term relationships through BFCM. These new customers can be retained with post-BFCM follow-up campaigns.
Examples for well executed page BFCM Campaigns
Roborock: Roborock Leverages Simplicity and Effectiveness with Black Friday & Cyber Monday Facebook Marketing Campaigns Using key elements like (a) Scarcity (b) Massive Discounts (c) Their Signature Brand Colors This type of ad features time-sensitive promotions with eye-grabbing graphics with the product and Roborock logo clearly visible. The campaigns drive engagement and conversion without overcomplicating the design by highlighting the smart features of the product and the urgency of the sale.
Apart from offering discounts, Roborock also add user-generated content and customer testimonials for authenticity, regularly sharing reviews or collaborating with influencers. This helps increase credibility and adds to the urgency elements. The result is a clean, focused ad built on the foundations of scarcity and brand recognition — perfect for garnering attention and driving sales in the BFCM season.
22 Days Nutrition: No one can pass up a deal, and 22 Days Nutrition took it a few notches up with a Black Friday mystery offer for customers. Users of the popular supplement brand were shared a random discount of 20% to 50% to each subscriber.
Belleroy: This is an excellent example of how to run a VIP campaign just for your email subscribers. Instead of holding off until the official sales windows, Bellroy often jumps the gun, giving their email subscribers first dibs on discounts that feel exclusive. By announcing things like sneak peeks, mystery discounts, etc. to subscribers ahead of BFCM, they create interest and sales before the actual sales go live. This approach is not only to generate interest, but also to allow Bellroy to do so segmentation and prioritize loyal subscribers most likely to get involved in the main campaign 기간.
Anyway, I don't know if I would consider this a well drilled BFCM campaign, but definitely, it's very original. In contrast to the typical Black Friday traditions, Cards Against Humanity does the opposite. The card company takes the shopping holiday as an opportunity to highlight its values and critique BFCM.
It didn’t offer discounts, instead increasing its prices, but this wasn’t the first time the brand had upended Black Friday expectations:
Additional Tips for BFCM
Here are some extra tips that can assist you to maximize the black friday cyber monday sales and revenue in your online stores:
Utilize Social Media
Using social media is an effective way to redirect visitors to Shopify stores on Black Friday and Cyber Monday while increasing its activity and sales on the platform. Here’s how to capitalize on it:
- Highlight Deals on Social Media Platforms: Leverage Shopify’s integrations with Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to help your store’s catalog connect with your social accounts. Use visually stunning posts, stories and reels to showcase your BFCM promotional offers while displaying products with clickable buttons that take customers directly to the product page on your Shopify store. Use Instagram or Facebook Stories to tease a countdown—keeping in mind that deals are time-sensitive—to lead up to something exciting.
- Engage and Respond to Followers: BFCM is associated with above-average engagement so make sure to respond to comments and DMs to keep prospective customers engaged. Integrations with Shopify lets you manage customer interactions all in one place — keeping response times fast. Incorporate interactive features like polls and Q&As in Stories to respond to your customers and address any questions about your deals or shipping policy, for example.
- Shopify’s Facebook Ads integration lets you target users based on their interests, behavior, and demographics to find the right audience. Enable retargeting advertisement for customers who had seen or added the products to their cart only to leave the site without purchasing it, with a reminder (or giving exclusive discounts) to push the sell. Utilize Shopify’s analytics to monitor live ad performance so you can modify budgets and targeting for better results.
- To Tap and Shop: As a Shopify user, you can tag products directly in your Instagram and Facebook posts so that customers can tap the tagged product inside your content to check prices, and add them to their cart for easy checkout inside your store. To create the smoothest possible journey for online shoppers, ensure that any links go directly to the respective BFCM collection or product page.
- Use Influencers and User-Generated Content: Contact influencers in your niche and ask them to help you promote your deals. Because Shopify integrates with social platforms, influencer content can easily point to your store, directing traffic right to your BFCM deals. Social Proof: You can share customer reviews and user-generated content to boost trust and show new audiences how others are enjoying your products/services.
- The result — a wider reach, higher engagement, and increased conversions during the heavy shopping period when people are interacting with ads and content.
Add free shipping for more conversions
This tried and tested route of free shipping during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) period has been hailed as the best way to secure conversions and draw in more customers. Customers tend to perceive free shipping as a good deal, particularly during holiday shopping. You may want to establish a minimum purchase threshold to encourage larger purchases, or you can offer it on all purchases to maximize the number of conversions. Promote the free offer prominently on your website, on product pages, in promotional emails. To create an extra sense of urgency, highlight that it’s a limited-time BFCM offer, to incentivize website visitors to finalize their purchase before the offer expires.
Offer High Quality Customer Support
A key factor in building customer loyalty and driving business is providing excellent customer support. Here are a few tips for fantastic customer support during your BFCM marketing campaigns and holiday season:
- Provide Different Channels of Support: Offer various ways for customers to reach out for assistance, including phone, email, chat, and social media. You might have different preferences, and giving different support options provides catering to all.
- Address Queries Quickly: Respond to customer inquires as soon as possible and quickly resolve issues to maximize customer satisfaction. Prompt responses can create a lot of trust and enhance the shopping experience.
- Set Clear Return and Exchange Policies: To minimize returns and exchanges, provide clear return and exchange policies. Transparent policies provide reassurance for customers making potential purchases and alleviates stress after purchase.
- Train Your Customer Support STAFF: Train your customer support team to offer superb customer service and address problems efficiently When they are well-trained, agents are able to respond to customers and clients adequately while enhancing the customer experience.
These tips and strategies will help you run a successful BFCM campaign that drives sales, satisfy customers, and retain them as long-term customers.
How to plan for a successful BFCM 2025
Practically speaking, e-commerce businesses should be preparing for BFCM from months in advance. Maximize immediate sales and customer loyalty by focusing on audience growth, making relevant offers, and using tools on platforms like Shopify to optimize your online outlet. This holiday season can be a profit-generating time that lays the groundwork for upcoming success if you have a written plan and a unique BFCM marketing strategy.
Are you prepared to simplify your 2025 BFCM sales like never before? But get started now, and let these tips guide you to a season of record-breaking sales.
Provide your customers with fast and accurate results for on-site search and filtering with Rapid Search, the AI-powered Shopify app that can help increase your BFCM 2025 sales. Help customers quickly find what they want, create a better shopping experience and increase conversions. Enter the smart search technology that can help make this season’s visit worthwhile.
