#211 Black Friday Is Lying To You (What the Data Actually Says + What It Doesn’t)

Hey folks, everybody loves Cyber Week numbers, right? Big charts, big screenshots, big claims. But Cyber Week is really not— Not intentionally. Structurally. Because when demand gets compressed, behavior gets compressed into 5 days, it gets a little distorted. And if you make decisions off distorted data, you will build the wrong strategy for the next 90 days. So this episode is not about what happened during Black Friday or Cyber Monday. It's about what the data says after the noise phase. Because the week after Cyber Week is going to get good operators clarity from the data, and bad ones are gonna double down on the wrong lessons. Welcome to episode 211 of the High Voltage Business Builders Friday Week in Review. It's December 13th, 2025, and I'm Neil. Hope you're doing great. If you're new here, welcome again. If you are returning, welcome back to the only e-commerce breakdown that helps you think like an operator, not a seller. Ooh, very big difference, right? Let's get into it because this week's not only about platforms breaking, it's about sellers misreading the scoreboard. All right. Here's the first thing most sellers get wrong every year. They treat Black Friday and Cyber Monday like a report card. Sales are up, you win. Sales are down, you fail. But Cyber Week is not a clean data set. It compresses demand. It distorts behavior. It hides profit and margin problems. That's why serious operators don't overreact to Cyber Week itself. They wait for the cool-off data. So Adobe's Digital Economy Index and Salesforce's Shopping Index both show the same thing every year. Holiday spikes exaggerate performance. The normalization period tells the truth. Post-Cyber Week data answers better questions. Did the customers come back? Did your AOV hold without any urgency? Did the returns spike immediately? Did paid traffic convert when discounts disappeared? If you don't wait for this data, you end up scaling for the wrong reason. So let's talk about what the data actually shows so far. Yes, overall online spending was up year over year. That part is real. But growth was uneven. According to Adobe's category-level reporting and Shopify's Black Friday, Cyber Monday merchant summaries, replenishable and essential categories held demand better. Giftable but nonessential categories peaked a little bit early, and impulse-heavy categories saw traffic without flow-through. Translation, a lot of brands saw clicks, not necessarily customers. This is where sellers get fooled. They see traffic up and assume demand is up, but traffic growth does not Equal buyer intent. Some brands pulled forward in December demanding you know what would be late November demand, and others sold to price-sensitive buyers who probably won't convert again. That distinction matters into the rest of December. Now let's talk about average order value because this is where things get a little dangerous. Adobe's data showed a noticeable increase in buy now pay later usage during Cyber Week. Salesforce saw the same pattern. So on paper, average order value looked healthy. But higher AOV does not automatically mean healthier revenue. It inflates checkout size without increasing the commitment. It also delays the cash flow and increases the refund risk. That's Buy Now, Pay Later. But here's the mistake some sellers make. They celebrate top-line revenue without accounting for the settlement timing of Buy Now, Pay Later. Got to consider that, right? Higher return rates typically for those who do this kind of deal, BNPL. An increased customer service load. Yeah, the money is not always yours yet. So be careful when you offer buy now, pay later options. If a December cash flow planning assumes every Cyber Week dollar comes clean, you are setting yourself up for a January problem. So operators keep track of revenue, but not booked revenue. There's a big problem with booked revenue if you're not paying attention to some of the things that are happening in other companies, non-e-commerce related. Booked revenue is going to bite some of them on the butt in the coming year. Now, another big takeaway from this week: traffic was cheap. Conversion quality was not. So across Shopify and Salesforce benchmarks, many brands saw higher sessions, flatter conversion rates, and rising acquisition costs masked by volume. This wasn't a platform issue. This was a signal issue. Cyber Week floods the market with browsers, deal hunters, and comparison shoppers. So if you scaled spend past clicks alone, you probably paid for intention instead of intent. The brands that won did not chase traffic. They watched contribution margins daily. They let competitors burn cash while they protected profit. Big deal. We always talk about profit, most importantly. So what are smart brands watching right now? Let's talk about what actually matters heading into mid-December, because this is where winners separate from losers. Smart brands are watching repeat purchase behavior post-BFCM, return initiation velocity, not just totals, shipping cutoff affects conversion. Okay. Consider that. And own channel engagement, especially email. All right. Own channel, big email, SMS. They are not running panic discounts. They're not chasing vanity metrics. They're not copying competitor promos blindly. Shopify and Adobe both point to the same problem. Brands that stabilized fastest after Cyber Week will outperform throughout the end year. December doesn't just reward noise; it rewards control. As we say around here, control the controllables. So last week everyone talked about chaos. Okay, this week the data tells a calmer story. Cyber Week didn't end and decide who won the quarter; interpretation did. This is what's fascinating about the way data is moving in today's world. So sellers who survived December aren't the loudest; they're the ones who know which numbers. lie and which ones don't. If you can read the data without emotion, you can take advantage most sellers never build, and that advantage compounds into 2026. Guys, it's fast and furious update today. I'll have a lot more coming up in the next week. So if this episode helped you see the game more clearly, share it with someone who's chasing traffic instead of profit as we head towards the end of the year. The next couple of updates as I lead into January 2026 are gonna help you really understand what you need to do in the coming year. So please pay attention to those upcoming updates. Episodes, they will be a very powerful and packed week in review. Now, if you don't have any idea on what to do with your next winning product idea, take a minute and go grab the gpt.caymandata.com. Grab that research product funnel. It's only $5. It's going to help you really understand what products you should consider in the coming year. Always grab time with me if you have questions about building, growing, scaling, or even exiting your brand. And if you want one-on-one support with my team in the next 12 months to build a 7-figure brand or hit Your three to five retirement timeline in your existing business. Text me personally at four one seven four one three four two zero nine keyword two eleven, or email me neil at voltage dm dot com with the same keyword. That's again me personally. Text four one seven four one three four two zero nine keyword two eleven. I'll see you next Friday on the next High Voltage Business Builders podcast. Ask you this: If you're serious about building an e-commerce business starting on Amazon FBA, what if myself and my team worked with you one on one to execute the steps outlined in the podcast while helping you discover what the heck to sell, how to make sure it's profitable, and how to successfully launch a brand. Plus, how to do it under a consulting plus performance-driven model where I put a $10,000 skin-in-the-game guarantee for those that show up and are serious about building a real business done with us. If yes, text keyword profit to +1-417-413-4209. That's 1-417-413-4209. And I will personally respond with a few simple questions. If you're not in the US or Canada, please visit voltage That's voltage dm dot com. Click get started and book a no-pressure discovery call with me or a member of my team to learn more about the business builders one-on-one coaching and mentoring for CEOs, entrepreneurs, and those looking to build an empire or retire using the power of e-commerce. Once again, thank you for listening, and be sure to tune in next week for a brand new episode of the High Voltage Business Builders Podcast.