Black Week 2026: plan for the weekend, not just the Friday

What 17 online stores did in Black Week 2025, in five minutes: when they started, how much more they sent, and why Friday is only half the peak.

The StackEnhance team · 2026-10-17

Black Friday is on 27 November this year. If your plan starts that morning and ends that night, last year's numbers say you are planning for half the peak.

We followed 17 online stores through Black Week 2025, every marketing campaign they sent from 1 November to 7 December. The full report, with a day-by-day chart and the name of every store, is in our insights: Black Week 2025: what online stores emailed, and how to prepare for 2026. Here are the three things we would act on first.

1. Start in the week of 16 November

Half of the stores that named Black Week had done so by 20 November, eight days before Black Friday. Ten of the thirteen started before Black Week itself. Home and interior stores went first.

2. Friday and Sunday are tied

Black Friday and the Sunday after it were the two busiest days, 18 and 17 campaigns, with a quiet Saturday in between and Cyber Monday close behind. Plan Friday to Monday as one push.

3. A 50% headline will not stand out

In Black Week the typical headline discount was 55%, and two out of three discounts were 50% or more. 36% of Black Week subject lines carried a percentage, against 14% in October. The report has the rest.

The stores that stayed out

Four of the 17 never wrote "Black Week" or "Black Friday": Burberry, Filippa K, Gucci and Prada. They kept emailing, on their own terms. If your brand does not discount, that is an option too.

Every number comes from campaigns Signal captured, from stores whose 2025 capture we could verify in full. How we picked them is explained at the end of the report.