Black Friday 2025 marked another significant shopping event for Canadian consumers, with retailers deploying sophisticated pricing strategies to capture holiday spending. Online and in-store spending on Black Friday reached an estimated $865 million in Canada, which marked a 6% increase compared to last year.
At DataWeave, we analyzed Black Friday 2025 pricing dynamics across two major categories in the Canadian market: Consumer Electronics and Home & Furniture. Our AI-powered pricing intelligence platform tracked approximately 16,000 SKUs across leading Canadian retailers like Target, Walmart, Wayfair, Home Depot, Amazon, Best Buy, Loblaws, Metro and more, uncovering distinct patterns in how brands and retailers structured their promotional calendars this year.
Our Methodology
DataWeave monitored pricing and discount trends across Canadian retailers during two key timeframes:
Pre-Black Friday Period: Up to November 23, 2025 – establishing baseline promotional activity and early holiday deals
Black Friday Week: November 24 – December 1, 2025 – spanning Thanksgiving through Black Friday (November 28) and Cyber Monday (December 1)
Our dataset included top-performing products across multiple subcategories on major Canadian retail platforms. We also tracked Share of Search metrics, measuring brand prominence by analyzing which brand names appeared in the top 20 search results for high-value keywords during each period.
Black Friday 2025 Canada: Overview
Here’s how average discounts compared between the Pre-Black Friday period and Black Friday Week:
Key Finding: Canadian retailers front-loaded their promotional strategy significantly, with Pre-Black Friday discounts averaging 16.3% across categories. The additional lift during Black Friday Week was modest at 1.4%.
Consumer Electronics
Consumer electronics consistently drives Black Friday traffic, and Canadian retailers delivered compelling early-season value. Our analysis of 11,772 SKUs reveals nuanced subcategory performance.
Subcategory Discount Breakdown
Consumer Electronics averaged 13.6% discounts in the Pre-Black Friday period, with Black Friday Week adding 1.7%. Audio & Video dominated early promotional activity at 23.8%, signalling retailers’ intent to clear inventory ahead of the main event. Wearables followed at 16.9%, likely timed to capture gift-buying momentum.
During Black Friday Week, Audio & Video maintained leadership with an additional 2.5% discount, the highest incremental lift in the category. Meanwhile, Computers and Gaming, already positioned at modest pre-sale discounts of 6.2% and 6.4%, saw minimal additional movement, suggesting constrained inventory or deliberate pricing discipline in these segments.
Share of Search: Brand Visibility Trends
Our Share of Search data reveals which brands gained or lost prominence during Black Friday Week:
Audio brands dominated visibility gains during Black Friday Week. Beats by Dr. Dre nearly tripled its Share of Search from 3.1% to 9.2%, showing the strongest gains. Visibility for Dutchman climbed 3.6%. Motorola and Samsung also captured increased search prominence with gains of 2.5% and 2.2% respectively.
Conversely, some established tech brands experienced visibility declines. Gaming brand Viprtech by 2.9%. Asus declined by 1.6%, and SanDisk dropped by 1.3%.
Home & Furniture
Home & Furniture showed the most aggressive early discounting of any category in our Canadian analysis. Tracking 4,362 SKUs, we found retailers heavily promoted home goods well before Black Friday weekend.
Subcategory Discount Breakdown
Home & Furniture led all categories with Pre-Black Friday discounts averaging 23.5%, but Black Friday Week added only 0.7%, the smallest incremental discount in our entire study. Kitchenware saw extraordinary pre-sale discounts of 43.2%, the highest in any subcategory we tracked. Bedding followed at 33.6%, while Furniture reached 24.3%. These deep early discounts likely aimed to drive early conversions and manage bulky inventory ahead of peak logistics constraints.
During Black Friday Week, additional discounting remained minimal across the board. Bedding posted the highest lift at 1.1%, while Kitchenware saw just 0.4%. The data suggests Canadian home goods retailers viewed the pre-sale period as their primary promotional window, with Black Friday serving more to sustain momentum than deliver new value.
Share of Search: Brand Visibility Trends
Mattress brand Zinus led gains with a 3.9% increase, positioning itself as a value-focused furniture leader during the sale period. Cuisinart climbed by 1.5%, suggesting strategic amplification of this established kitchenware brand.
Most home brands maintained relatively stable visibility throughout the sale period. Safavieh and Dorel showed essentially no change, while Better Homes & Gardens and Viscologic experienced only minor declines of 0.1% and 0.2% respectively.
Want to understand how DataWeave’s pricing intelligence platform can help your business make data-driven decisions during peak sales events? Contact us to learn more about competitive insights, price intelligence, assortment analytics, content analytics, and digital shelf analytics.
Check out our coverage on Black Friday 2025 across US, UK, and Germany. Follow our blog for more insights on retail pricing trends, brand visibility analysis, and data-driven commerce intelligence.
Black Friday 2025 shattered records once again. U.S. consumers spent a record $11.8 billion online on Black Friday, a 9.1% increase from 2024 and the first time online sales exceeded $11 billion. The National Retail Federation (NRF) projects holiday retail sales (November-December) to grow 3.7% to 4.2% over 2024, with total holiday spending expected to surpass $1 trillion for the first time ever. Against this backdrop of robust consumer spending, how did leading retailers and brands perform across key categories this Black Friday?
At DataWeave, we conducted a detailed analysis of Black Friday 2025 pricing trends across five major categories: Consumer Electronics, Home & Furniture, Health & Beauty, Grocery, and Apparel. Our AI-powered pricing intelligence platform monitored nearly 80,000 SKUs across leading U.S. retailers like Amazon, Walmart, Target, Macy’s, Home Depot, Sephora, and more, revealing interesting patterns in how retailers and brands approached this year’s sale season.
Our Methodology
For this analysis, DataWeave monitored average discounts across leading U.S. retailers during two distinct periods:
Pre-Black Friday: Up to November 23, 2025 – capturing early holiday deals and baseline pricing
Additional Discounts During Black Friday Week: November 24 – December 1, 2025 – covering Thanksgiving week through Black Friday (November 28) and Cyber Monday (December 1)
Our sample encompassed the top-ranked products across subcategories on major retail sites. We also analyzed Share of Search data, which measures brand visibility by monitoring which brand names appear in the top 20 search results for critical keywords.
Black Friday 2025: The Big Picture
Here’s the snapshot of average discounts during the Pre-Black Friday period compared to Black Friday Week:
Key Insight: Pre-Black Friday discounts were significant across all categories. This suggests retailers front-loaded their promotions to capture early holiday shoppers, with additional discounts during Black Friday Week adding to the baseline discounts already in place.
Consumer Electronics
Consumer electronics remain one of the most anticipated categories during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Notably, AI traffic to retail websites grew 805% year-over-year, with consumers using AI tools most frequently for video games, appliances, and electronics categories. Our analysis of 10,356 SKUs reveals how discounts varied across subcategories.
Subcategory Discount Analysis
In Consumer Electronics, Pre-Black Friday discounts averaged 14.6% across subcategories, while Black Friday Week saw an additional 2.6% discount on average. Audio & Video products led the pre-sale discounting at 17.5%, indicating retailers were eager to move inventory early. During Black Friday Week, Audio & Video, Accessories, and Wearables saw the highest additional discounts (2.9-3 %), while Computers and Storage had already been heavily discounted pre-sale, leaving minimal room for further reductions during the main event.
Share of Search: Brand Visibility Trends
Our Share of Search analysis reveals significant shifts in brand visibility during Black Friday Week:
The Takeaway: Our analysis reveals significant shifts in brand visibility during Black Friday Week compared to the pre-sale period. Computing and mobile-focused brands like Apple and Asus gained substantial ground, while audio brands like Logitech, JBL, and Beats saw their visibility plummet. Apple’s Share of Search jumped from 1.58% to 6.2%, a gain of 4.6%, suggesting strong promotional activity or heightened consumer interest. Meanwhile, Logitech dropped nearly 8%, from 9.9% to just 1.2%.
Home & Furniture
The Home & Furniture category continues to be a consumer favorite during Black Friday. Our analysis of 12,610 SKUs shows how discounts were distributed across subcategories.
Subcategory Discount Analysis
Home & Furniture saw Pre-Black Friday discounts averaging 13.9%, with Black Friday Week adding just 1.7% on average, the second-lowest additional discount among all categories. Bedding led pre-sale discounts at an impressive 18.6%, followed by Furniture at 16.4% and Outdoor at 15.1%. This suggests retailers aggressively promoted home goods early in the season to capture deal-seekers.
During Black Friday Week, Bedding maintained leadership with 2.4% additional discounts, while Kitchenware saw the smallest bump at just 0.9%, indicating early promotions had already captured most of the discount opportunity.
Share of Search: Brand Visibility Trends
The Takeaway: The Home & Furniture category saw some of the most dramatic Share of Search swings in our entire analysis. Emerging and value-oriented brands dominated the gains, with Swedrea surging from 8.7% to 19.6%, a remarkable 10.8% increase. Similarly, Clickbin and Costway each gained over 9%. On the flip side, established premium brands like Beautyrest and Livabliss saw sharp visibility declines, dropping over 7-8%.
Health & Beauty
Health & Beauty has emerged as a growth engine during Black Friday. The beauty industry is projected to grow 5% annually through 2030 according to a McKinsey survey. Our analysis of 16,141 SKUs reveals subcategory-level insights.
Subcategory Discount Analysis
Notable finding: Health & Beauty presented a unique discounting pattern compared to other categories. Pre-Black Friday discounts averaged just 7.1%, the second-lowest among all categories. But Black Friday Week discounts were relatively strong at 4.8%. This indicates the Beauty category held back more discounts for the main event.
Notably, Hair Care was the only subcategory across our entire analysis where Black Friday Week discounts (6%) exceeded Pre-Black Friday discounts (4.6%), suggesting retailers strategically saved their best hair care promotions for the big weekend. Fragrance led pre-sale discounts at 13%, making it an attractive early shopping category.
Share of Search: Brand Visibility Trends
Health & Beauty saw some of the most dramatic Share of Search swings in our analysis, driven largely by celebrity-backed brands. Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez exploded from just 1.9% to 13.7%, a whopping 11.8% gain that made it the biggest winner across all categories. Haus Labs by Lady Gaga also surged (+4.1%), while prestige brands like Dior (+2.6%) and Clinique (+2.4%) gained ground.
The flip side? Retailer private labels took a hit: Beauty Finds by ULTA Beauty collapsed from 24% to 13.7% (-10.3%), and Sephora Collection dropped from 19.8% to 16.0% (-3.8%).
Key Takeaway: The Beauty category tells a compelling story about the power of celebrity brands during Black Friday. The Share of Search shifts appear to reflect how retailers and brands recalibrated their promotional focus for Black Friday. Celebrity-driven lines rose sharply in visibility, suggesting stronger placement, promotion, or search prioritization during the sale period. At the same time, private-label ranges from ULTA and Sephora lost ground, indicating a pivot away from house-brand visibility in favor of more spotlighted national and prestige brands throughout the event.
Grocery
While Grocery typically sees more modest discounts compared to discretionary categories, the sector remains a critical part of Thanksgiving weekend shopping. According to the National Retail Federation, grocery stores and supermarkets ranked as the third most popular shopping destination during Thanksgiving weekend, with 40% of consumers making purchases there. Our analysis of 18,823 SKUs shows how retailers approached promotions across essential and indulgent subcategories.
Subcategory Discount Analysis
Grocery had the lowest discounts across all categories, reflecting the already-thin margins in food retail. Pre-Black Friday discounts averaged just 5.2%, with Black Friday Week adding only 1.5%. Household Essentials and Beverages led pre-sale discounts at 6.9% and 6.7% respectively, and maintained their lead during Black Friday Week with 2.2% additional discounts each. Fresh categories like Meat & Seafood (1.4% pre-sale, 1% Black Friday Week) and Frozen Foods (3.3%, 1%) saw minimal promotional activity, consistent with perishable inventory constraints and tight margins.
Key Takeaway: Grocery discounting remains conservative, with shelf-stable and household items seeing the most promotional activity. The Beverages and Household Essentials subcategories, which have longer shelf life and higher margins, were the primary battleground for grocery promotions during BFCM 2025.
Share of Search: Brand Visibility Trends
The Grocery category saw some surprising Share of Search swings during Black Friday Week. Most notably, there was a dramatic divergence between beverage giants: Sprite surged from 1.7% to 6.8% (+5.1%), while Coca-Cola collapsed from 6% to just 0.1% (-5.9%). This stark contrast suggests vastly different promotional strategies or algorithmic visibility changes between the two brands. Private label 365 by Whole Foods Market continued its steady rise, gaining 3%, reflecting ongoing consumer interest in store brands as shoppers seek value.
The Sprite vs. Coca-Cola divergence is one of the most striking findings in our analysis. Additionally, brands like Amy’s (organic/natural foods) and McCormick (spices/seasonings) gained significant visibility.
Apparel
Apparel remains a Black Friday staple and performed strongly this year. Our analysis of 21,749 SKUs (the largest category in our study) reveals interesting patterns.
Subcategory Discount Analysis
Apparel showed strong discounting activity throughout the BFCM period. Pre-Black Friday discounts averaged 13.8%, with Black Friday Week adding 3.8%, the highest additional discount among all five categories. Men’s Clothing and Women’s Clothing led pre-sale discounts at 17.7% and 17.5% respectively, reflecting aggressive early promotions on core apparel. Interestingly, Plus Size Clothing saw the highest Black Friday Week discount at 5.4%, suggesting retailers pushed harder during the main event to drive conversions in this segment. Kids’ Clothing also saw strong Black Friday Week discounts at 4.4%.
Share of Search: Brand Visibility Trends
Apparel saw dramatic Share of Search movements during Black Friday Week. Fashion-forward brands dominated the gains: Madewell surged from 6.9% to 16.1% (+9.2%), while Alice + Olivia jumped from 14.7% to 23.6% (+8.9%). Nike also performed strongly with a 7.1% gain. Conversely, outdoor and athletic brands faced steep declines: The North Face dropped from 18.4% to 5.9%, a massive 12.5% decline, the largest in our entire analysis. Adidas fell 7.7%, Beyond Yoga declined 5.3%, and luxury brand Coach by 5%.
Key Takeaway: The data suggests fashion-forward and lifestyle brands (Madewell, Alice + Olivia, Saint Laurent) gained visibility at the expense of outdoor/athletic brands (The North Face, Adidas, Beyond Yoga). This could indicate that fashion brands invested more heavily in promotional visibility during the sale period.
Want to understand how DataWeave’s pricing intelligence platform can help your business make data-driven decisions during peak sales events? Contact us to learn more about competitive insights, price intelligence, assortment analytics, content analytics, and digital shelf analytics.
Follow our blog for more insights on retail pricing trends, brand visibility analysis, and data-driven commerce intelligence.
