Filed under: Market Outlook · Sector Trends
Why Black Friday 2025 Is Living Up to the Hype
Back in the early 1960s, police officers in Philadelphia started calling the day after Thanksgiving “Black Friday” because of the chaos—suburban shoppers and tourists flooding into the city, heavy traffic, and packed stores.
No one back then imagined that this “messy shopping day” would grow into a season that can account for around a third of annual sales for some U.S. retailers.
Fast-forward to today, and Black Friday has evolved into a multi-week event. Black Friday 2025 is now fully underway, and it is shaping up to be one of the biggest yet.
According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), about 186.9 million Americans are expected to shop over the five-day period from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday. That’s a massive wave of consumer activity, and there are a few reasons activity is so high this year:
Real wages have improved, so people feel slightly better about spending, especially when they see big discounts.
Inventory has normalized after the pandemic, so retailers across many categories are ready to compete aggressively on price.
Online channels keep growing, while physical stores are catching up with options like buy-online-pick-up-in-store (BOPIS) and curbside pickup.
AI-driven recommendations are making it easier to show the right product to the right shopper at the right time.
Frictionless payments—one-click checkouts and mobile wallets—are making “impulse buying” simpler than ever.
Against this backdrop, let’s look at three consumer-facing companies that are sitting at the center of this year’s Black Friday wave.
1. Amazon (AMZN)
You already know the name. Amazon is the world’s largest e-commerce platform and a major cloud leader through AWS.
🛍️ Amazon’s Black Friday Play
Amazon doesn’t treat Black Friday as just one day. It has essentially turned it into a two-week (or longer) shopping festival, pulling demand forward and keeping traffic elevated over an extended period.
In 2024, Amazon generated an estimated billions of dollars in sales over this period, and in 2025 it’s aiming to repeat—or even beat—that performance by running longer campaigns and more targeted promotions.
During this holiday season, Amazon focuses on:
Locking in Prime members with exclusive deals and perks.
Pushing its own private-label brands and devices (Echo, Fire TV, etc.).
Serving highly targeted AI-driven ads, which boost both sales and ad revenue.
Leveraging its massive logistics network, using same-day and next-day delivery as a key competitive weapon.
On top of that, AWS’s strong cash generation gives Amazon more flexibility to offer aggressive discounts than many competitors can match.
📊 AMZN Stock Angle
If the holiday season delivers as expected, Amazon could see upside in Q4 earnings, potentially setting up an earnings surprise.
Two key points for investors:
Operating leverage: As volumes rise, fixed costs in logistics and infrastructure are spread over more sales, which can expand margins—especially with AI-driven warehouse automation kicking in.
Expectations risk: The real question is whether good news is already baked into the price. Many analysts already view Amazon as one of the best-positioned platforms to benefit from year-end shopping demand.
In short, Amazon looks like a core holiday winner, but any trade on the stock needs to consider valuation and how much optimism is already priced in.
2. Shopify (SHOP)
If Amazon is the giant marketplace, Shopify is the infrastructure behind countless online stores. Millions of small and mid-sized brands—along with influencers and creators—use Shopify to build their own storefronts and sell directly to customers.
🛍️ Shopify’s Black Friday Play
Younger shoppers, especially Millennials and Gen Z, increasingly look for unique, indie brands that don’t necessarily show up on Amazon. A huge chunk of that traffic ends up on Shopify-powered sites.
During Black Friday and Cyber Monday, one thing tends to spike:
Shop Pay, Shopify’s one-click checkout system, often experiences a surge in usage as shoppers move quickly across different brands and stores.
Shopify’s model is simple but powerful:
When gross merchandise volume (GMV)—the total value of orders processed through Shopify merchants—goes up,
Shopify earns more through subscription fees + payment and transaction fees.
With mobile commerce now approaching around 60% of global online sales, Shopify’s mobile-first design puts it in a strong position to capture more of that spending.
📊 SHOP Stock Angle
For Shopify, GMV is the key metric to watch. The more shoppers spend during this weekend:
If interest rates move lower or even just stabilize, growth stocks like Shopify can become more attractive again. In that sense, SHOP sits at an interesting intersection of consumer demand, tech growth, and fintech trends.
Among consumer-linked names, Shopify is one of the clearer plays on independent brands and rising online GMV.
3. Walmart (WMT)
Walmart is the world’s largest brick-and-mortar retailer, but it’s no longer just an offline giant. Over the past few years, Walmart has transformed itself into a serious omnichannel player.
🛍️ Walmart’s Black Friday Play
Walmart’s famous slogan, “Everyday Low Price,” becomes even more powerful during Black Friday. In 2025, one important trend is “trade-down”:
Some important points:
Walmart has pushed hard into online retail, generating over $120 billion per year in e-commerce revenue.
Black Friday traffic is likely to spike both in stores and online.
Services like store pickup and same-day delivery let Walmart fully leverage its physical footprint.
📊 WMT Stock Angle
Walmart is often seen as a defensive stock—a name that can hold up reasonably well because people still need essentials. Interestingly, in 2025, Walmart’s stock performance has outpaced Amazon’s at times.
Why?
In an environment of inflation, Walmart benefits from its low-price image.
At the same time, higher-margin businesses like digital advertising are growing, improving profitability.
This gives Walmart a dual identity: a defensive play in tough macro conditions and a structural growth story as its digital ecosystem scales. Analysts increasingly view Walmart as a strong candidate to be the “omnichannel winner” of this holiday season.
Epilogue: How to Think About These Stocks as an Investor
Black Friday 2025 is poised to deliver record online sales and could help push the holiday shopping season toward the $1 trillion mark in the U.S.
At the center of that story are platforms and retailers with strong e-commerce and omnichannel capabilities:
Amazon with overwhelming scale and logistics.
Shopify with speed and independence for brands.
Walmart with price leadership and broad reach.
That said, from an investment perspective, timing and expectations matter. Holiday optimism is often priced in ahead of time. Rather than purely chasing a short-term trade, ask yourself:
Can these companies sustain their advantages after the holiday season?
Are their long-term growth drivers intact?
Does the current valuation leave room for upside?
For many investors, a more patient approach—holding through the Q4 earnings season with a clear thesis—can make more sense than trying to guess the exact peak of the holiday hype.
Disclaimer: This article is for information and education only. It is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Always do your own research.
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