A Successful Black Friday 2025

To help you capture more of that demand, here’s a roadmap to prepare your business for a successful Black Friday season.

1. What's different (and important) this year

Before diving into checklists, it’s helpful to note a few trends that are especially relevant in 2025:

• Sustainability is a non-negotiable. More consumers expect evo-friendly, minimal waste or reusable packaging. Find out more about our sustainability story here.
• Customisation and experience rule. It’s not enough to just to deliver a product – the unboxing, the message, the little touches will all make a difference.
• Omnichannel & hybrid shopping behaviour. People may research offline or in-store, then order online (or vice versa).
• Last minute purchasing is rising. Many customers delay Black Friday purchases until the actual day or weekend, so flexibility matters.

Keep all these themes in mind: customer expectations are higher, mistakes are less forgiven, and your operational resilience can determine success.

2. Black Friday checklist

1 month before: 

• Start countdown promotions
• Segmentation and email campaigns to prior customers
• Preload inventory to your warehouse
• Train your team for this busier period and finalise workflows
• Double-check safety stock buffers

1-2 weeks before:

• Final quality checks
• Lock in shipping arrangements, carriers
• Ensure packaging materials are staged
• Schedule social media and email blasts

Black Friday week/ the day:

• Keep communications clear (cut-offs, stock levels)
• Monitor your data live (traffic and sales)
• Provide more customer support and/ or a live chat
• Be ready to scale up fulfilment if needed
• Offer ‘last chance’ bundles or introduce flash deals or extras

Post Black Friday/ Cyber Week:

• Extend promotions into ‘Cyber weekend’
• Analyse performance vs forecast
• Follow up with customers (up-sell or cross-sell)
• Solicit reviews, unboxing images and videos

3. Stock & materials - don't get caught short

• Order with lead time in mind. Our branding services have tighter deadlines as we move closer to Christmas so it’s worth checking with our team if we can still help with any branding you might have in mind.
• Build up ample amount of stock. As you will have done an inventory check a month before, you’ll know what you will and won’t need. It’s easy ordering stock with Gadsby as we don’t have a minimum order value and offer free delivery on orders over £150 (excl VAT).
• Test all materials for durability. Our materials are made with strength, durability and long term after use in mind. It’s always a good idea to test what a hamper can fit in; we give you a rough estimate on each individual product page.

4. Managing logistics, fulfilment & returns

• Confirm your shipping partners’ peak-period capabilities and cut-off dates
• Offer multiple shipping tiers (standard, next day, express) but clearly communicate deadlines
• Using tracking and notifications to ease customer anxiety
• Plan for returns: decide your policy, whether repackable items can be reused

5. Marketing & customer communication

• Create anticipation: sneak previews, early-bird access, email signups
• Encourage gift givers: include the messaging that the hamper is also the gift, no need for wrapping
• Utilise social media: unboxing videos, behind-the-scenes, packaging reveals
• Use past customer data: target those customers who have bought from you before
• Leverage urgency and scarcity: ‘limited stock’, ‘ends soon’ language, for example

6. After the storm: extend value beyond Black Friday

• Don’t shut down: continue promotions via ‘cyber week’ or half price offers
• Send follow-up emails: give them an incentive to buy from you again
• Encourage user-generated content (UGC): look out for tags or ask for unboxing photos and videos
• Retain new customers: have post-sale journeys ready (upsell, cross-sell)
• Analyse metrics (traffic, conversion, cart abandon rate, SKU performance) and document learnings for next year

7. Key takeaways

• Plan early: some services have longer lead times than others
• Differentiate via packaging and experience (not just price)
• Build buffer and back up plans
• Engage customers early and often
• Work the post Black Friday tail: extend offers, collect data, nurture relationships