For as long as all of us here at Skywire can remember, Black Friday has always had a mixed reaction from clients. In the luxury and premium space, some ask us: should we even be doing it?

The conversation is still ongoing, and we have clients such as Eto Wine who have always opted out, but mostly we test and learn with them to optimise for key performance.

So what did we learn from our clients who did partake this year?

Across Skywire’s client base, Black Friday performance was strong - but not in the way that tradition would suggest. The most significant uplifts did not consistently land on the Friday itself. 

Instead, demand surfaced earlier in the week and remained elevated well beyond the conventional 24-hour window. In one case, a luxury fashion brand we work with recorded the highest-ever sales day in its history during the week.

However, this peak did not occur on Black Friday itself, but rather on the preceding Tuesday, where their sales more than doubled compared with the same time period in 2024. 

Similar patterns appeared across multiple accounts, with different days peaking for different brands. The conclusion is difficult to ignore: Black Friday is no longer a single moment to be won.

At the heart of why this model has shifted is consumer behaviour. The idea of Black Friday as a standalone event increasingly conflicts with how consumers actually behave. Shoppers now discover earlier, research across channels and devices, and purchase when clarity and confidence align – and not simply according to the constraints of clock and calendar.

And in no digital space is this more pronounced than in the luxury space. If you’re a luxury brand, your customers are less driven by short-term urgency and more by experience, trust, and ease.

The one-day, high-pressure push laden with discounts and an almost needy grab for attention across a single day is highly incongruous with these qualities, and will only serve to erode your own brand identity.

Many of the most successful brands we’re lucky enough to work with treat Black Friday as a period, and not simply a moment. 

In anticipation of this, Skywire prepared clients and launched redesigned checkout experiences for a great number of ecommerce businesses that we work with to maximise customer experience and conversion.

By treating Black Friday as a trading period, extending and sequencing touchpoints across the entire week, they were able to capture and convert intent wherever it surfaced – without having to resort to urgency-led tactics or signals of desperation. Many of our clients didn’t even offer discounts or promotions at all.

The data from this year’s findings show that peak attention, peak conversion, and peak revenue no longer align reliably – if they ever did at all. 

The key to a successful Black Friday now depends on orchestration more than ever before. Particularly for luxury brands, it pays to view your demand as a rolling wave: build anticipation well in advance, and sustain that momentum across the entire week rather than viewing a single day as the denouement of the year’s performance. 

So no, Black Friday isn’t disappearing – but the way that brands win it is fundamentally changing.

Want help making 2026’s Black Friday your best yet? Get in touch for a chat today and see how we can help.