What’s your Black Friday strategy?

October 7, 2025 ·Gabriel Comelli

Last month, I highlighted some data behind Black Friday and how it performed last year, with a deeper dive on how the furnishings market scored post-event. Recapping on the final point, according to IMRG’s report, home and garden retailers saw an increase of 4.1% compared to Black Friday last year, while Cyber Monday sales were down 2.5%.

In terms of market segment, budget items through the period were up 3.3%, mid-market products rose 4.6%, while premium sales were down 15.2%. Garden furniture saw the biggest rise, up 8.8%, while furniture sales rose 5.1% overall – and also up 5.8% on Black Friday itself. Home improvement sales rose 2.9%, while homeware sales were up 7.6%.

So, with that in mind, has this encouraged your business to get involved in Black Friday?

If you’re unsure of what to do, this month’s blog is all about what others in the space are already doing in preparation of the event, which returns on Friday 28 November 2025, with Cyber Monday on 1 December 2025. There’s still plenty time, and I’ll even highlight a great way to kick off your Black Friday promotion in the form of text marketing – more on this later.

What’s being done now?

Having searched a variety of furniture, sofa and bed retailers - 54 to precise, it’s safe to suggest that Black Friday momentum is building.

The main takeaway points as it stands right now, it’s more of a call to action to get customers already searching to sign up for the first Black Friday deals as they land. This is via a registration form specifically for the event. It’s a great way to capture interest – and remember, if a customer signs up to one, they are more than likely to be signing up for a few to compare offers as they get revealed.

A good example of this is Graham & Green. On their Black Friday landing page, it highlights savings to come but draws you in to sign up to its ‘Loyalty Exclusive Access’ scheme, which runs from 7th - 10th November – much earlier than the officially Black Friday date of 28th.

Other interesting takes from searching the web also detailed how some brands referred to last year’s discounts, with the expectation that this year will follow suit. For example, DFS offered “savings across a wide range of our sofas, up to 50% off beds and mattresses, and up to 60% off clearance” in 2024.

Meanwhile, Furniture Village has a dedicated page to Black Friday, encouraging shoppers to sign up to its newsletter, but it also provides further information on the event and why to use them. In similar notion, JYSK has a detailed page on product categories included in the sale, while also using Christmas as a good reason to shop and take advantage of the promotion. “Black Friday is a clear opportunity to get a head start on the Christmas gift race,” the first line states – which rings true for savvy shoppers looking to get ahead. Again, there is a sign-up form, but interestingly, JYSK reveals that it will unveil its offers three days before the event officially kicks off.

As for Choice Furniture Superstore, the business has already started its promotions with a ‘Mega Black Friday Sale’ that runs from 25th November to 2nd December, while John Lewis is offering discounts of up to 50% off on selected items. As for Bed Factory Direct, the company is offering an extra 10% off products during Black Friday and Bensons for Beds details much more information on mattress shopping, linking each point with Black Friday and how to take advantage of the sale period. Although there was nothing on 2025 just yet from Bensons, the informative year-long page maintains its Black Friday presence, which looked pretty solid and as the event nears, it would be expected to see this page updated with offers.

From overall product discounts to tailored deals, Land of Beds is a good example of launching a brand specific Black Friday sale. Focussing on Hypnos, the sale includes up to 50% off across a variety of Hypnos products, although it was unclear whether this was from last year or in preparation for next month. What is does highlight is another way to use the event to tailor a promotion to a specific product category or, in this case, a high-profile brand.

It's also worth noting that when searching, there were a number of retailers that didn’t have anything up on the event just yet, but information from the last year. This will most likely be updated in the weeks that follow, whereas other retailers in the space didn’t have anything up at all – feels like a missed opportunity.

Search Black Friday

Shifting the focus from retailer searches through Google, I also took a deep dive on search metrics using specific terms and what search frequency they were delivering so far (over the last 30 days). The terms included ‘black friday furniture’, ‘black friday sofa’, ‘black friday mattress’, ‘black friday bed’, and ‘black friday 2025’.

The results displayed a significant uptick in searches on 27th and 28th September, suggesting that weekend searches ahead of the event could continue to perform strongly. The highest relatable search term was ‘when is black friday’ – indicating shoppers are making plans to note the date in the diary, therefore it is worth having a page on your website detailing this information to potentially boost traffic.

More broadly, ‘black friday’ searches on Google have been steadily increasing over the past 30 days too, another indicator that shoppers are starting to think, plan and prepare for promotional period.

Send a Black Friday text

As mentioned earlier in this article, text marketing is a great way to boost any sale or promotion you are running. Black Friday is no different. Whether you are promoting a specific product promotion or one-off discount during the event, utilising text marketing can be a real game-changer. Here’s the why and how.

As part of its text marketing service, RetailSystem recently announced a major upgrade to its Point of Sale platform by rolling out customisable SMS and text headers for its customers. It’s big news as RetailSystem will register each retailer’s chosen name with the local networks.

That means every promotional or service text is clearly branded, trusted, and fully whitelisted. The impact? Retailers can expect a 25–30% boost in read rates on an already successful feature – putting their chosen brand name front and centre in every customer interaction.

The handy upgrade comes at a great time for retailers looking to bolster marketing, specifically around key promotional periods such as Black Friday - and even Christmas. Whatever your company is planning for Black Friday, give it that extra push by sending a Black Friday text.

For more information, visit https://www.retailsystem.com/uk/features/text-marketing/

Back to Blog