Deals, discounts, and duds: Talon.One’s Black Friday trend report is here

Looking at Talon.One data from EMEA, AMER, and APAC, we’ve identified six key trends from this year’s shopping spree. These insights are designed to help you benchmark your own metrics, especially in areas like discounting strategies and impact on loyalty program performance.

Dive in to see how your performance stacks up and to understand the bigger picture shaping this year’s holiday shopping season.

This year’s Black Friday spending broke new records, with Talon.One data showing Total Revenue and Influenced Revenue both hitting all-time highs.

Total Revenue refers to the overall revenue processed through Talon.One, based on client basket data. Influenced Revenue refers to all transactions that have a promotion, coupon or loyalty program reward associated with it. Our data shows Total Revenue on Black Friday weekend was up by 71% compared to two weekends prior, with Influenced Revenue seeing a 124% increase.

While we saw record highs in terms of influenced revenue, our Black Friday figures were lower than first predicted. Instead, we saw several shopping peaks throughout October and earlier in November. A closer look into the data showed these peaks were driven by exclusive sales events, geared towards loyalty program members, well before the holiday rush.

Brands like Amazon and Sephora are increasingly using member weeks as centerpieces to their loyalty programs, delivering a huge range of exclusive deals to members on an annual or semi-annual basis. These “lightning strike moments” create a buzz of launches and offers that capture market and media attention. 

By hosting these events before Black Friday, companies stand out and avoid getting lost in the noise of the season’s shopping frenzy. Strategically timed member-exclusive weeks also shape customer habits early and increase marketing opt-ins ahead of the holiday peak.

Looking at the number of discounted items passing through Talon.One, we see a noticeable spike from November 21st onwards: a full week before this year’s Black Friday. This represents a 40% day-over-day increase in total number of discounted items from November 20th to November 21st. Despite this, the average discount percentage stayed relatively stable throughout November, hovering between 17 to 20%. 

The takeaway for companies is clear: customers are beginning their deal-hunting earlier than ever. By planning and launching your promotions well in advance, you can tap into this early shopping trend and secure a larger share of pre-Black Friday sales.

This year, many retailers opted for more strategic discounting, in the knowledge that consumers are primed to shop during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

The average discount rate across Black Friday weekend this year was just under 20%, which was lower than we anticipated. This aligns with industry forecasting that Black Friday 2024 was expected to feature lower discounts, due to a smaller inventory surplus compared to 2023.

By offering moderate discounts rather than going all-in with steep price cuts, companies are able to maintain healthier margins. It’s a smart move: shoppers are ready to spend during these major sales events, which means they’re likely to buy even without deep discounts. By reducing discounts slightly—even by just a percentage point or two—retailers can preserve their margins while still driving substantial revenue. Over the course of the weekend, these small adjustments can add up to millions of dollars in extra profit.

Our data shows that Black Friday is a huge opportunity to welcome new customers to your loyalty program. Loyalty program enrollment increased by 35% during Black Friday Week compared to Talon.One’s 6-month average.

The takeaway? Leverage Black Friday as a prime onboarding moment. Highlight your loyalty program’s value in your marketing or at checkout, making it easy for customers to see the benefits they’re missing out on. 

For many companies, Black Friday weekend marks the most critical sales period of the year, with months of planning and preparation behind it. All that hard work can quickly go to waste with system outages, checkout failures, or slow-loading websites - a reality that still affected several high-profile brands this year.

At Talon.One, high performance and reliability have always been central to our product development strategy. This year, we reached an all-time high of 675 million API requests, with 100% uptime over the Black Friday weekend. Here’s a closer look at what this looked like: 

Our customers depend on us every day, and even more so during high-traffic, high-stakes events like BFCM. Reliable performance at this scale isn’t accidental; it’s the result of a continuous commitment to building a robust, scalable solution that lets our clients focus on their customers, not their tech.

For UK retail leader River Island, Talon.One’s scalability over high-volume traffic days was one of the key reasons they chose to work with us.

This year was a big win for our customers and the entire Talon.One team. We empowered businesses to connect with more shoppers than ever and drive meaningful engagement. Now, we’re focusing on helping clients turn those new shoppers into loyal, repeat customers through targeted promotions and personalized loyalty experiences.

And next year, we’re ready to make it even bigger and better.