Thomas Hill, former Asda pricing lead and co-founder of HyperFinity, explains why Black Friday needs to change to reward loyal rather than single shoppers.
Back in 2013, Asda changed the face of sales events in the UK. Owned by US retailer Walmart, the supermarket decided to launch Black Friday, and I was part of the team that brought it over.
At the time, Black Friday did what it intended to do (and had done in America), which was provide genuine huge discounts on high-ticket items that people really wanted. The premise was simple: create a massive publicity stunt, so the media covers your deals, shows that you’ve got great offers and, consequently, drives significant footfall into your store.
And it worked. Everyone went crazy for it – the footfall in Asda was a ridiculous amount. Since then, however, Black Friday’s taken on a whole new meaning. Originally, it was, of course, one day, the fourth Friday in November. As a one-off stunt, with a few items with great deals, it worked fantastically – sales and footfall went massively up. But then it grew arms and legs and toes to become, in essence, a whole month, an industry-wide discount cycle.
Victim of its own success
What’s more, instead of simply driving footfall into stores, the phenomenon gained massive momentum online. Online sales from Black Friday now surpass in-store spending, and have been influenced by the dominant Amazon Prime Day campaigns (Prime Day is 2-3 days, twice a year).
What then happened is retailers fell into the trap of only being bothered about year-on-year comps (store revenue growth); whatever you did the year before, you had to improve a year later. This meant more products, more deals. But as consumers were buying the products that were heavily discounted, this also meant margin loss.
And as more people started doing it, brands didn’t see the footfall coming in, as it was spread out. That meant they were simply losing money instead of creating additional income from increased footfall.
Retailers knew they couldn’t give away that much margin, so they started to manage deals and product prices for periods before Black Friday and then dropped them for the event. In several investigations over the years, consumer group Which? found that the vast majority of Black Friday deals were actually cheaper or the same price during other times of the year. Last year, it was 100% for the products it researched.
As soon as this started to happen, it made it all an absolute farce. Retailers got stuck in a yearly cycle of trying to find promotions and deals that made Black Friday look and feel compelling to a customer and wouldn’t shoot themselves in the foot for margin. But it’s not really been achieved, so they’re often just giving money away above the lines.
An intelligent approach that rewards loyalty
Black Friday is no longer a footfall-driving event to specific stores. But there is a natural increased footfall period created by Black Friday and Christmas, they almost operate as an event together. So brands need to think about how they trade through that event. This is why it’s about being more intelligent and returning to genuine, deeper deals that provide real discounts – but targeting them to customers through loyalty instead.
You might take £200 off a TV, for instance, but only provide this discount for 10% of your customer base that you want to reward. Now, if they’ve been a loyal customer and you know they love and buy electricals from you regularly, then that’s a win-win. Customers get a great deal and feel rewarded, while brands reward the behaviour they want to see and build further loyalty.
This takes Black Friday back to offering authentic discounts over made-up deals. It doesn’t kill your margin, because you’re not rolling out a load of sale prices, and it’s cleverly done. Nobody’s really doing this properly or cracked it yet – I believe it’s time for that to happen.
Of course, there are always going to be footfall-driving deals for you as a retailer, the iconic lines people want to buy that offer a good deal. But you then need to think about how you price the rest of your assortment when you’ve driven that footfall to balance out the margin.
The beginning of the end for Black Friday?
Retail has changed hugely since Black Friday launched in the UK in 2013. Loyalty has become a particular area of competition. But in its current format, Black Friday rewards single shoppers and not loyal ones. Naturally, this leaves loyal customers dissatisfied, and ultimately, it’s the people that are going to come back after Christmas that you want to benefit. Brands should want to balance this ratio.
To do this, they need to start thinking of Black Friday as an increased footfall period where they don’t need to give away as much margin on big-ticket lines. It’s not about big bang deals. Instead, Black Friday should become a below the line, targeted promotional strategy that rewards loyal customers and drives the behaviour brands want to see. That should be the Black Friday of 2026.
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You are in: Home » Guest Comment » GUEST COMMENT This year should mark the end of Black Friday as we know it
GUEST COMMENT This year should mark the end of Black Friday as we know it
Thomas Hill
Thomas Hill, former Asda pricing lead and co-founder of HyperFinity, explains why Black Friday needs to change to reward loyal rather than single shoppers.
Back in 2013, Asda changed the face of sales events in the UK. Owned by US retailer Walmart, the supermarket decided to launch Black Friday, and I was part of the team that brought it over.
At the time, Black Friday did what it intended to do (and had done in America), which was provide genuine huge discounts on high-ticket items that people really wanted. The premise was simple: create a massive publicity stunt, so the media covers your deals, shows that you’ve got great offers and, consequently, drives significant footfall into your store.
And it worked. Everyone went crazy for it – the footfall in Asda was a ridiculous amount. Since then, however, Black Friday’s taken on a whole new meaning. Originally, it was, of course, one day, the fourth Friday in November. As a one-off stunt, with a few items with great deals, it worked fantastically – sales and footfall went massively up. But then it grew arms and legs and toes to become, in essence, a whole month, an industry-wide discount cycle.
Victim of its own success
What’s more, instead of simply driving footfall into stores, the phenomenon gained massive momentum online. Online sales from Black Friday now surpass in-store spending, and have been influenced by the dominant Amazon Prime Day campaigns (Prime Day is 2-3 days, twice a year).
What then happened is retailers fell into the trap of only being bothered about year-on-year comps (store revenue growth); whatever you did the year before, you had to improve a year later. This meant more products, more deals. But as consumers were buying the products that were heavily discounted, this also meant margin loss.
And as more people started doing it, brands didn’t see the footfall coming in, as it was spread out. That meant they were simply losing money instead of creating additional income from increased footfall.
Retailers knew they couldn’t give away that much margin, so they started to manage deals and product prices for periods before Black Friday and then dropped them for the event. In several investigations over the years, consumer group Which? found that the vast majority of Black Friday deals were actually cheaper or the same price during other times of the year. Last year, it was 100% for the products it researched.
As soon as this started to happen, it made it all an absolute farce. Retailers got stuck in a yearly cycle of trying to find promotions and deals that made Black Friday look and feel compelling to a customer and wouldn’t shoot themselves in the foot for margin. But it’s not really been achieved, so they’re often just giving money away above the lines.
An intelligent approach that rewards loyalty
Black Friday is no longer a footfall-driving event to specific stores. But there is a natural increased footfall period created by Black Friday and Christmas, they almost operate as an event together. So brands need to think about how they trade through that event. This is why it’s about being more intelligent and returning to genuine, deeper deals that provide real discounts – but targeting them to customers through loyalty instead.
You might take £200 off a TV, for instance, but only provide this discount for 10% of your customer base that you want to reward. Now, if they’ve been a loyal customer and you know they love and buy electricals from you regularly, then that’s a win-win. Customers get a great deal and feel rewarded, while brands reward the behaviour they want to see and build further loyalty.
This takes Black Friday back to offering authentic discounts over made-up deals. It doesn’t kill your margin, because you’re not rolling out a load of sale prices, and it’s cleverly done. Nobody’s really doing this properly or cracked it yet – I believe it’s time for that to happen.
Of course, there are always going to be footfall-driving deals for you as a retailer, the iconic lines people want to buy that offer a good deal. But you then need to think about how you price the rest of your assortment when you’ve driven that footfall to balance out the margin.
The beginning of the end for Black Friday?
Retail has changed hugely since Black Friday launched in the UK in 2013. Loyalty has become a particular area of competition. But in its current format, Black Friday rewards single shoppers and not loyal ones. Naturally, this leaves loyal customers dissatisfied, and ultimately, it’s the people that are going to come back after Christmas that you want to benefit. Brands should want to balance this ratio.
To do this, they need to start thinking of Black Friday as an increased footfall period where they don’t need to give away as much margin on big-ticket lines. It’s not about big bang deals. Instead, Black Friday should become a below the line, targeted promotional strategy that rewards loyal customers and drives the behaviour brands want to see. That should be the Black Friday of 2026.
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