What kind of peak trading are we looking at?
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What kind of peak trading are we looking at?
It’s that time of year again for retailers, with November in full flow and (the hope at least) of order volumes steadily increasing across the month, before erupting into a deafening crescendo on Black Friday (the day itself rather than an indeterminate period leading up to it), then a gradual easing off after another couple of hectic weeks, and then…everyone can breathe again.
Many retailers drive significant portions of their annual revenue across this period so, exhilarating as it may be, it has to deliver for the business. Once the dust has settled and retailers are assessing their campaigns in January, those numbers could really do with looking good. But – in order for that to be the case, we need a few contextual and external factors to play ball.
So: what are the prospects for this year being a good one for retailers? Let’s look at some of the usual suspects.
The competition
What are we up against? Black Friday online has been subject to some unprecedented shocks in recent years, with gigantic growth during the lockdowns of 2020 followed by huge spikes in inflation that have stunted growth ever since. Then, in 2024, Black Friday went back a week in the calendar causing merry havoc with the YoY figures in the lead-up as it was all skewed. Amid all the confusion though it did come good, with the week of Black Friday securing growth of +3.1%. November was up, December was up too…it’s a pretty tough comparator truth be told.
The Great British Public
Are those loveable rogues ready to play their part and splash the cash this year? Interestingly, after a poor, prolonged period for ecommerce, 2025 has seemed a bit brighter. While some retailers point out that shoppers are holding out for discounting even more than normal, we have seen in-line or above-forecast revenue growth for several product categories…with the exception of clothing, which is seeing an awful year for online performance.
The first week of November was perhaps revealing for how things will develop. Gifting is flying, has been right across September and October; sports & outdoors and home & garden also seeing several consecutive weeks of positive growth, so a good start for them. Clothing and electricals have experienced a much slower start to the peak period though.
The Budget
Not the first time we’ve had a budget in November, I do sometimes wonder if politicians consider us lowly ecommerce operators when they make these announcements!
You could of course make an argument that every budget is important in its own way, but the one this year is already being signalled as a highly significant moment due to the state of the nation’s finances. A rise in income tax for the first time since the 1970s appeared to be on the cards for a while but now seems less likely; nonetheless there are holes to be plugged, and it remains an open question as to whether this will lead to shoppers holding back their spending during the biggest-spending week of the year for retailers. It is scheduled for two days before Black Friday…
The infrastructure
On 18 November, the IT company Cloudflare experienced issues that caused outages for many sites (they are used by around 20% of internet sites including Chat GPT and X). While at the time of writing sites appear to be coming back again, it does remind us that there are parts of the internet that can knock businesses offline entirely which, for an online retailer, means they are unable to trade during that time. This week is a busy one, but the week of Black Friday is the really big one – anything like that happening then could be a real problem for retailers so here’s hoping the supporting tech behaves itself…
The weather
Yes, the weather. A key determiner of demand in some categories (think if you’re selling garden equipment or clothing), extremes can push and pull it around a lot. The real issue though is the threat of snow in the lead-up to Christmas. Following a very mild finish to Autumn, the wind direction has changed to northerly, bringing down air from Scandinavia. This looks set to bring in much colder nights for a while and potentially some snow in high ground in the north; not really a major issue for retailers yet but, if that wind direction continues to dominate it brings serious potential for disruptive conditions.
For the carriers, this can lead to vans getting stuck and stock getting backed up in warehouses. Then as we get closer to Christmas Day the prospect of gifts not getting delivered in time, which is a disaster for a retailers’ reputation…
So – here’s hoping the stars align for a favourable trading environment this peak period.
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