“Black Friday” is a misnomer because it is no longer a single day of shopping frenzy. It has become a marathon stretching from early November through December, as retailers pull deals forward to ease one-day pressure on supply chains, staffing and logistics — and to lock in consumers before they shop elsewhere. Discount deals are often still available after Black Friday itself.
This year’s event confirmed that South African customers are buying earlier in the month, though there was a strong surge on payday (November 25, a Tuesday), followed by Black Friday itself on November 28.
The term Black Friday is thought to have first been used in the retail context by Philadelphia traffic police in the 1960s to describe the gridlock caused by the crowds who came out to shop on the day after Thanksgiving, which is always the last Thursday in November. The following day is traditionally the start of the US Christmas shopping season. It was globalised in the 2000s through Amazon and the spread of US retail culture.
Black Friday has been a thing in South Africa for about 10 years, driven by Massmart, the supermarket chains, telecoms companies and e-commerce players such as Takealot.
In the US, online Black Friday sales reached $10.8bn last year. Online shoppers (87-million) outnumbered in-store shoppers (81-million). In South Africa, it’s estimated that online now accounts for 20%-25% of total Black Friday spending. That’s still lower than mature markets, due to such factors as delivery infrastructure and a strong legacy store network.
Shoprite says consumers are increasingly using digital channels to hunt for bargains ahead of the festive season. During this year’s early Black Friday promotions, customers responded enthusiastically to deals on items ranging from SnoMaster camping fridges and Dyson appliances to Zodiac pool cleaners and HTH chlorine.
The Shoprite Group experienced its highest-ever one-day sales volumes on Saturday November 22, when 7.5-million products were picked and more than 1.9-million users visited the app.
Amazon said its Black Friday shoppers are buying everyday essentials such as rice, maize meal and toiletries as well as the traditional electronic devices, often making frequent, smaller purchases rather than a single big buy.
Takealot said November 2025 was a record-breaking month. It recorded its best-ever day in terms of visits, orders and units processed. The highest value of a single basket on Black Friday exceeded R114,000. In terms of units sold, Baby Soft toilet paper took the top spot followed by Russell Hobbs air fryers and Eucerin sunscreen. If you stacked all the air fryers it sold one on top of the other, said Takealot, “it would reach higher than 70 Table Mountains”.
Sales of Coca-Cola ranked fourth — Takealot sold enough of this product to serve two drinks to all 95,000 fans in a sold-out FNB Stadium. In terms of value, TV sets, other tech products and appliances ranked highest.
The major banks reported robust spending over the Black Friday weekend, with record highs for individual purchases and strong growth in digital transactions, according to MyBroadband.co.za. High-value splurges were common, including on jewellery, international travel and accommodation. All banks highlighted double-digit growth in online payments, rising trust in digital channels and strong demand at e-commerce marketplaces.
Absa recorded the biggest personal transaction, a R1m car rental payment. Standard Bank followed with an R864,000 purchase of home furnishings. Nedbank reported its highest combined single personal spend at R3.4m, while a Capitec client dropped R4.3m on 64 transactions. FNB customers spent R3.4bn in total.
The whole Black Friday hype is flawed ... Does it leave anyone better off? I believe not.
— Casparus Treurnicht
Capitec’s Black Friday spending data comparing 2025 with 2024 shows strong double-digit growth in both transaction volumes and value. There was a 16% increase in total transactions, reaching 63.4-million. Peak processing saw 649 transactions a second.
In-store spend was up 11%, with Shoprite retaining the top spot, followed by Superspar (a spot held last year by Pick n Pay, which dropped to fourth position) and Checkers in third place, according to Capitec spending data. Boxer rounds out the top five Black Friday retailers among Capitec’s clients.
What’s in it for the retailers?
In theory, the higher volumes should compensate for the narrow margins caused by steep discounts, and Black Friday is an opportunity to protect or grow market share. The most sophisticated operators make aggressive-looking deals work for them. They stretch promotions over weeks and engineer sharp “was/now” price signals.
While the volume increase has proved to be real, much of the spend is simply pulled forward from December. As Black Friday has stretched into “Black November”, some of the novelty has worn off. Demand is increasingly reshuffled rather than newly created.
Staggered campaigns by retailers help to smooth the logistics and limit the need for extreme discounts over the core Black Friday weekend. But they come with a trade-off: shoppers delay purchases until the promotions start, often reducing higher-margin sales earlier in the month.
And there are added costs from extended trading hours, payment to staff for overtime, warehousing pressure and last-mile delivery spikes. Even with supplier-funded promotions, price cuts on products such as TVs and laptops are expected to function as loss leaders — the retailer sells below cost to attract customers in the hope they will buy other stuff as well.
Health and beauty groups such as Clicks and Dis-Chem, along with the big alcohol retailers, see strong turnover, with many of their promotions subsidised by suppliers. Grocery retail on Black Friday is used strategically to push selected items — detergents, coffee, pet food — to boost basket size.
The psychology of discounting is powerful: people fear missing out, urgency prompts quick decisions and a reduced price creates a sense of “winning” even when the saving is small.
Investors and analysts will want to know which retailers can convert volume into profit and to what extent consumers are willing to rack up credit card debt.
It is hard to say whether Black Friday is worth it, for retailers or for consumers. There are undoubtedly some good deals and consumers can save money. But they may buy more than they need or be taken in by “discounts” that are no cheaper than the normal price. Retailers can clear inventory and those who drive volumes hard will gain.
The novelty this year was the entry of Walmart into a retail sector that is cut-throat at the best of times. It timed the opening of its first branded store in South Africa, at Clearwater Mall on Gauteng’s West Rand, to coincide with the Black Friday period.
Walmart said it focused on products that its research showed would be in high demand, including household essentials such as long-life milk and toilet paper, and electronic goods such as smart TVs, air fryers and washing machines.
Walmart is the world’s largest retailer, with 270-million shoppers visiting its stores each week. It entered South Africa in 2010 when it bought Massmart, the owner of Makro, Game and Builders Warehouse. However, consumer interest in its Clearwater opening (followed by another at Fourways in northern Johannesburg) probably owed more to curiosity than pent-up demand for the brand.
Jeremy Sampson, chair of Brand Finance Africa, says the Walmart name might not mean much to many South Africans. He notes that several major US brands have entered the local market without the success their reputations seemed to promise. Examples are Pepsi and Burger King.
Sampson is blunt about Walmart’s history in South Africa. It is “a very mean machine, highly professional and extraordinarily successful in the US, but nothing short of a disaster here”. He raises questions about the scale of Walmart’s investment to date in South Africa, how much the group has lost, and how urgently it is now trying to recoup these losses.
He adds that anti-US sentiment could also be a factor. “There’s a patriotism that comes into play — it’s not just Mrs Ball’s chutney; it’s also the supermarket chains.”
Robbie Proctor, executive director at I&M Financial Services, says the environment was already turning more promotional this year ahead of Black Friday, which is “probably a risk to profitability”.
Anchor Capital investment analyst Casey Sprake writes that Black Friday has become a meaningful barometer of consumer sentiment, household resilience and underlying demand conditions.
Casparus Treurnicht, portfolio manager at Gryphon Asset Management, says “the whole Black Friday hype is flawed”.
“Yes, people flock to stores for bargains, and on average customers claw back a little from retailers, now that everyone is compelled to offer something, or risk losing foot traffic. But does it leave anyone better off? I believe not. Some customers buy things they don’t need. Some of it might even go to waste. And while retailers may secure a bit of extra revenue, they do so at thinner margins.”
