Black Friday 2025: New report gives e-commerce merchants critical insights

The temperatures might be hotting up, but the majority of e-commerce businesses will now be planning for the winter months, with Black Friday always a key revenue driver. In response, a new report has been published by Ecommpay, the inclusive global payments platform, providing vital insights into 2024 Black Friday trends to help merchants plan for this year.

Published in partnership with the UK eCommerce Association, IMRG, and cookieless attribution software provider, Corvidae, the new report reviews the performance and key trends of online retail during Black Friday and the Christmas period in 2024.

Bringing together data from IMRG’s Online Retail Index, Daily Black Friday Tracker and analysis of more than 360 retail sites in November, the report includes analysis of revenue by marketing channel, conversion trends, abandonment rates and popularity of discount types and much more. Such insights will be invaluable to retailers planning ahead for November and December 2025.

Key findings:

• Black Friday 2024 saw a 3.1% growth, and a 3.8% rise in bounce rates compared to the previous year.
• Specialist retailers significantly outperformed multi-category retailers in year-on-year revenue growth.
• Traffic from direct mail and email decreased by 1% each, while paid social saw a 1% uplift.
• The average conversion rate for Black Friday week 2024 was 4.6%.
• A strong correlation was observed between higher headline discounts and increased checkout conversion rates.
• More sessions started on product pages (36.9%) than home pages (12.6%), indicating customers arrived via specific product links.

“Christmas planning in July is a well recognised trend in the retail sector, and 2025 will be no different”, commented Roy Blokker, Head of Strategic Sales, Ecommpay. “While stock may already have been planned and ordered, many online retailers will now be planning marketing strategies and promotions to capitalise on the peak sales season at the end of the year.”

“Looking back on the 2024 festive season provides valuable learning to inform 2025 strategies. Bounce rates rose last year, basket abandonment improved slightly, and checkout abandonment stayed almost the same. It seems that while more people left sites early, those who stayed were more committed to completing their purchase.

“As well as ensuring they line up the most appealing discounts and special offers to entice customers to purchase, merchants should ensure they have done everything they can to remove obstacles in the checkout journey. We know from previous research that most drop-offs occur at the payment stage, highlighting a key point for retailers to get right. Offering the right payment methods, a range of currencies and Buy Now Pay Later options can make a significant difference to conversions.”

With Ecommpay, more than 100 APMs are available through one integrated payment platform, ensuring a seamless payment journey with familiar payment methods for every customer, regardless of geography.

Complementing the range of APMs available, Ecommpay allows merchants to present customers with a currency choice on the payment page, enabling them to choose the currency in which they are willing to pay. This provides flexibility and transparency, while matching the purchase currency with the currency of their card. The Ecommpay ‘Try Again’ feature also means that if a first payment method fails, the customer can retry or choose an alternative method within the same transaction. This is critical in reducing declines and preventing customers from abandoning the checkout.