Shopify BFCM 2025 News: Recap, Takeaways & 2026 Outlook

BFCM 2025 was huge for Shopify — record sales, millions of shoppers, and more brands than ever hitting their best day in business. But if you’re running a store, the real question isn’t “how big was it?” It’s why some merchants surged while others got lost in the noise.

This article goes beyond the headline Shopify BFCM 2025 news. We’ll walk through what actually happened from both the merchant side and the shopper side, then turn that recap into five concrete takeaways and a set of forward-looking predictions.

If you’re planning your 2026 playbook, this is your shortcut to understanding what worked, what quietly failed, and where the next wave of opportunity is likely to be.

Let’s get into it!

Shopify BFCM 2025 Recap: What Really Happened?

If you’ve been following Shopify BFCM 2025 news, you’ve already seen the big headline: it was a record-breaking year. Shopify merchants generated approximately $14.6 billion in sales over Black Friday and Cyber Monday, representing a 27% increase compared to 2024 (reported by Shopify itself), with more than 81 million shoppers purchasing from Shopify-powered brands worldwide.

That’s the surface story. To make it useful for strategy, we need to split the picture in two:

• How this weekend looked from the merchant side
  
• How it felt from the shopper's side
  

Both angles point to the same message: demand is strong, but it is also more selective and more mobile than ever.

Hey, if you are looking for a recap of the previous year to gain a greater outlook, check out our BFCM 2024 recap as well! 

1. From the Merchant Side: A Bigger Pie, but Harder to Win

For merchants, BFCM 2025 was not just “more of the same.” The numbers show a larger opportunity, but also a sharper divide between brands that were prepared and brands that were not.

According to Shopify, record sales and more merchants winning

• Total BFCM sales on Shopify climbed to $14.6B, with almost 95,000 merchants hitting their best sales day ever on the platform.
  
• The average order value during the weekend was a little over $114, which suggests that shoppers were willing to spend, but often on mid-ticket baskets rather than just big one-off splurges.
  

This is good news, but it also means something important: more brands are competing at a higher level, not only the usual big players.

Top product niches: everyday desire, not just holiday gifts

Shopify’s own data highlights a clear mix of top-selling categories:

• Cosmetics and beauty products
  
• Clothing tops and pants
  
• Activewear
  
• Fitness and nutrition
  

Taken together, this is less about one-time “big electronics deals” and more about personal style, self-care, and long-term habits. For merchants, that means:

• You don’t have to sit in a classic “gift” category to win BFCM.
  
• Niches tied to routine use and identity (how people look, feel, and perform) had strong momentum.
  

If your store specializes in beauty, wellness, apparel, or fitness, BFCM 2025 confirmed that shoppers are comfortable stocking up for themselves, not just buying gifts for others.

Global by default: cross-border demand is meaningful

Around 16% of orders over the weekend crossed borders. For merchants, this has two clear implications:

• If you already sell internationally, BFCM is a major moment to optimize shipping options, duties, and messaging for cross-border buyers.
  
• If you don’t, you are likely leaving real demand on the table, especially in categories where taste and trends travel fast (beauty, fashion, fitness).
  

Mobile isn’t just “important” anymore – it’s the main stage

Across broader BFCM and holiday data, mobile took the lead: in some large datasets, roughly two-thirds of orders and an even higher share of traffic came from phones.

Even though these reports cover ecommerce in general, not just Shopify, they line up with what most brands see in their dashboards:

• Most first touches and a big chunk of purchases happen on mobile.
  
• Desktop still matters, especially for research and higher-ticket buys, but it is no longer the default.
  

For merchants, that turns “mobile optimization” from a nice-to-have checklist item into a primary revenue lever. A beautiful campaign that only really works on desktop is now a risk, not a strength.

Last but not least, let's not forget that now people can purchase through their phone while using AI models like ChatGPT. To find out more about it, check out our topic on Shopify ChatGPT integration! 

2. From the Shopper Side: Selective, Mobile, and Value-First

On the other side of the screen, BFCM 2025 did not feel like a mindless shopping frenzy. Shoppers showed up in large numbers, but they did it with a clear agenda.

Shoppers still chase deals – but only when the value feels real

Surveys around this season show that discounts and savings are still the main trigger for BFCM purchases, with around seven in ten shoppers naming savings as their top motivation.

At the same time, higher living costs and economic uncertainty have made people more careful. This creates a specific pattern:

• Shoppers watch deals earlier, compare across sites, and sign up to be notified when offers drop.
  
• They are less tolerant of messy or vague promotions. If the offer is hard to understand, they move on.
  

The record sales numbers on Shopify didn’t happen because people were reckless. They happened because many brands presented clear, easy-to-trust value at the exact moment shoppers were actively hunting.

Mobile is the main shopping companion

From the shopper’s point of view, BFCM has become a phone-first ritual:

• People browse deals during commutes, breaks, and evenings from a mobile screen.
  
• Many complete the purchase on that same device, especially for familiar brands and mid-range prices.
  

Industry-wide data backs this up. Queue-it reports that 64% of Cyber Five traffic came from mobile devices and that mobile often accounts for more than half of sales during the season

That behavior puts pressure on:

• Page speed – slow pages lose impatient thumbs.
  
• Clarity above the fold – shoppers need to know in seconds what the deal is and whether it’s for them.
  
• Frictionless checkout – any forced account creation, confusing forms, or extra steps increases the chance they drop the cart and never come back.
  

Cart abandonment remains a silent leak

Global eCommerce data still places cart abandonment above 70% on average, even as technology improves.

During BFCM, this is amplified: shoppers compare across multiple tabs and apps, leave items in carts to watch prices, and sometimes simply forget. For consumers, this is normal behavior. For merchants, it means that traffic and add-to-cart alone are not reliable success metrics.

Winning brands respond to this by:

• Making the path from product view to checkout as short and predictable as possible, especially on mobile.
  
• Using reminders, back-in-stock alerts, and follow-up campaigns to bring high-intent shoppers back instead of treating abandoned carts as dead ends.
  

Why people bought: gifts, self-care, and “future me”

Even without exact numbers splitting gift vs personal use, the mix of leading categories tells a story:

• Cosmetics and beauty often reflect a blend of self-treats and gifting.
  
• Activewear and fitness products lean heavily toward “future me” purchases — people investing in health or routine.
  
• Clothing is classic for both holiday outfits and an everyday wardrobe refresh.
  

So from the consumer side, BFCM 2025 wasn’t only about ticking off gift lists. It was also about locking in value on things they already know they will use in the weeks and months ahead.

From here, we can move on to the key takeaways for Shopify brands — what this behavior actually means for the on-site experience, inventory planning, and your 2026 playbook.

Beyond Shopify 2025 BFCM News: Key Takeaways for Merchants 

1. Experience-Led Stores Outperformed Discount-Led Stores

As usual, the onsite channel is one of your biggest performance channels. BFCM 2025 didn’t reward the loudest discount; it rewarded the clearest experience. Stores that laid out their offers on clean, focused pages – hero, value, social proof, clear CTAs – made it easy for shoppers to say “yes.” 

In contrast, overlapping pop-ups, multiple banners, and unclear rules forced people to think too hard and eroded trust. The lesson: your UX is part of the offer. A “-30%” message wrapped in confusion is weaker than a smaller discount wrapped in clarity.

A BFCM webstore, for example. Image source: Foxify Demo

2. Dedicated BFCM Landing Pages Had Higher Conversion

Sending all traffic to a generic homepage is basically asking shoppers to do the sorting work for you. The brands that made more of BFCM 2025 built dedicated landing pages that matched the promise of their ads and emails: one main offer, the right products, and a clear next step. 

When a visitor clicks through and lands on a page that answers “What’s the deal? Why should I care? What do I do now?”, conversion almost always improves. For paid traffic, especially, an intention-matched page is no longer optional.

More BFCM webstore examples. Image source: Foxify Demo

3. “Sold Out” Without a Plan = Losing Paid Demand

Every “sold out” page that leads nowhere is wasted money, especially when the click came from a paid campaign. In BFCM 2025, merchants without waitlists or back-in-stock alerts essentially told high-intent shoppers to leave and try someone else.

Stores that offered a simple “notify me when this is back” kept that intent alive and turned it into December and Q1 revenue. They also gained a clear signal of which products deserved priority in their next purchase order.

4. BFCM Is Now a Data-Collection Moment

Yes, BFCM is about revenue, but it is also a short, intense window where shoppers tell you what they care about. Clicks on specific sections, add-to-cart patterns, waitlist sign-ups, response to bundles and price points – all of this is data you can use for your next campaigns and future product decisions.

The brands that treated BFCM 2025 as a live experiment now have sharper segments, stronger creative angles, and a better read on demand. Those who only looked at total revenue missed most of the story.

5. Operational Readiness Is Now a Competitive Advantage

The gap between “we survived” and “we grew” this BFCM was mostly about operations. The strongest Shopify brands had offers, stock, site performance, support, and analytics planned as one system, not as separate tasks. That meant fewer stockouts, faster responses, smoother checkouts, and less chaos when traffic spiked. 

In 2025, BFCM success was not just about marketing ideas; it was about how well your team, tools, and inventory could execute under pressure.

Our Final Thoughts on 2025 BFCM

Instead of treating Shopify BFCM 2025 news as background noise, use it as a line in the sand. This past season showed that strong brands don’t just discount harder – they design better experiences, collect better data, and plan their operations like a system, not a scramble.

If you’re on Shopify, the real work now is simple but not easy:

• Turn campaign landing pages into reusable assets, not one-off projects.
  
• Make sure “sold out” is the start of a flow, not the end of it.
  
• Treat every peak like a test bed for the next quarter, not just a spike on a chart.
  

Do that, and BFCM stops being a stressful event you “get through” once a year. It becomes one of the clearest signals you have about what your customers want next – and how ready your store is to meet them there.

For more insights and sharings, stay tuned to our eCommerce blog. Happy selling!