The Doorbusters Are Back (And So Are the 5 am Lines)

‍Taking it to the Streets. If you thought the days of the doorbuster had gone the way of the dodo, think again—they’re back. As a Gen X-er, my memories of Black Friday doorbusters are reminiscent of Jingle All the Way. But it seems that Gen Z and Alpha are here for the near-death experiences of Black Fridays of yesteryear, and this year, retailers were all too happy to indulge them.

The most popular offers at early-opening stores were gift bags and gift cards. Kohl’s, Lowe’s, and Target each handed out a swag bag and gift card drawing for the first 200 and 100 customers in line, respectively.

My own Alpha/Zoomer cuspers were Black Friday-curious, and convinced me to get up before the buttcrack of dawn to hit three major sales: Target, Kohl’s, and Five Below. Though we struck out at Target (it seemed as though some had been camping out in line the evening before), we hit the jackpot at the rest of the stores we visited.

Beyond the new giveaway totes, some retailers got more creative, still. Discounter Five Below gamified their doorbuster event (a $25 “all you can Squishmallow” sale) by daring 7 am shoppers to take the “squish” in the mallow literally—the deal had a limit-10-per-customer, and customers had to fit them all in an impossibly small tote. Each store had a limit of 15 totes. Five Below, eager to capitalize on its bevy of film licenses, was flexing a $20 Wicked cosmetics fridge.

In total, we hit seven store openings: Guitar Center, Five Below, Best Buy, Kohl’s, Target, Dunkin’ (Wicked tins!), and Starbucks ($25 gift card = $5 free!).

While retailers are spinning back up the nostalgic “embodied” store experiences and drawing customers back into their doors for gamified experiences, it represents an arbitrage opportunity. Most customers are still staying home for lackluster deals. But the best deals are now to be found early on Black Friday, once again.

— Phillip

‍Tariffs Come to a Head? Consumers worldwide spent $35.6B online on Thanksgiving, a 6% increase over last year, according to Salesforce data. (Global spend reached $13.1B by 2 pm ET.) In the US, consumers spent $8.4B, up 3%. The company expects shoppers to spend twice that amount by the end of today.

Despite the increase in sales, order volumes on Thanksgiving fell 2% year over year. With the average selling price up 8% year over year, these results indicate that higher prices drove the sales boost. The home category, which includes furniture, decor, and appliances, was hit the hardest, with ASP up a staggering 32%. (It’s no surprise that the home furniture category saw the greatest sales growth, +27%, YOY.) Meanwhile, the ASP for food and beverage categories was up 14%. 

We’ve been analyzing how new tariff rules and rates are affecting consumer spending for more than 7 months. The summer saw a healthy surge in spend, with many shoppers frontloading purchases, but it seems we’re now starting to see the effects. 

Savings, Schmavings. On Thanksgiving, Adobe saw shoppers “trade up” to higher-ticket items in categories like electronics, where “share-of-units sold” for the most expensive goods increased by 58%. The company tracked similar patterns for sporting goods (up 53%), appliances (up 44%), personal care (up 36%), and tools/home improvement (up 30%). This data is a fascinating diversion from the broader narrative leading up to the holiday season, which emphasized consumers trading down to stretch their budgets. 

Of course, consumers’ motivation to spend ties largely to discounting, which Adobe indicated was “stronger than anticipated” on Thanksgiving Day. For example, discounts for electronics peaked at 28% off the listed price, a rate they did not expect until Cyber Monday. These insights contrast with Salesforce’s analysis, which found that the discount rates for the merchants they analyzed did not change between 2024 and 2025, both globally and nationally. 

Skincare Redemption. For the past six months, we’ve shared the results of our WOM Index with Fairing, and they've consistently pointed to a clear takeaway: the WOM rate for beauty and health products was low. But Shopify’s Black Friday data shows that skincare, followed by vitamins and supplements, are the top-selling categories worldwide so far. Shopify’s data found that shopping peaked at 11 am ET on Thanksgiving Day, and so far, 12 pm ET has been the busiest time for Black Friday shopping. 

Want to dig a bit deeper into our WOM data to see how these holiday shopping behaviors will impact total WOM rates? 

Plus members get exclusive access to our full WOM Index data. And right now? Annual membership is just $50 with code BLACKFRIDAY. Join and save over $150.

Bot Bonanza. Usage of generative AI platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity is rising, and our data has shown how these tools influence the entire buying journey. But what does consumers’ growing comfort with AI mean for merchants who offer similar tools and bot-driven service experiences? So far, Salesforce has found that the total number of service conversations with AI agents has surged by 28% YOY from Nov. 25-27. 

Additionally, the company found that retailers who have agents on their websites saw 9% sales growth on Thanksgiving alone. We’ll report if, and how, these numbers shift throughout the weekend, especially as Cyber Monday brings the thrill of finding the best product (and best price) for higher-ticket categories. Will AI be consumers’ shopping friend or foe?

For Your Influence. AI may have a hand in the modern shopping journey, but that doesn’t mean influencers still don’t have, erm, influence. According to Adobe, social media’s share of online revenue was 5%, up 30% YOY. Affiliates and partners (including influencers) garnered nearly 22% share of revenue, a continuation of media consumption patterns we tracked during the back-to-school shopping season.