Black Friday: Real discounts, no fake crossed-out prices
Black Friday brings Christmas shopping forward rather than creating new demand: in 2025, sales volumes declined by 3% during Black Week, and 62% of purchases were gifts. A campaign is therefore evaluated based on November and December combined.
Customers know that most advertised discounts are small. It’s better to focus real discounts on the items that are actually being compared, decide when to end a sale before it begins, and keep in mind that the Black Friday price becomes the benchmark for promotions over the next 30 days.
Black Friday has become the peak shopping period when the French do their Christmas shopping. It shifts demand at least as much as it creates it, and every discount advertised commits the retailer to its list price.
This article focuses on the promotion itself: which discounts to apply, how to end the promotion, and how to measure its effectiveness. The 30-day reference price rule is covered in a separate article.
Black Friday: A Highlight That Brings Christmas Closer Rather Than Driving Sales
Black Friday is no longer just one day—it's a whole month. The first discounts start as early as mid-November, and the 2026 event culminates on Friday, November 27.
Above all, what has changed is its purpose. For a large number of customers, Black Week has become the week when they do their Christmas shopping.
of the purchases made during Black Week 2025 in France were Christmas gifts. Sales volume fell by 3%, while sales value rose by 0.4%.
(Joko, based on bank transactions from one million French people, as reported by Ecommerce Nation on 12/22/2025)
Analysis: A significant portion of November's revenue is believed to have been generated in December, at full price. Black Friday shifts demand at least as much as it creates it.
Our position: Black Friday results should be evaluated based on November and December combined, never on that single week alone. This is the only way to measure the incremental impact of a promotion when it involves gifts.
The real risk is legal, not just commercial
This is the point that general Black Friday guides tend to overlook: a discount is calculated based on the lowest price charged in the preceding 30 days (Article L112-1-1 of the Consumer Code).
Details about the rule and its exceptions can be found in our article on the 30-day reference price.
The other rules governing pricing—from the no-loss resale threshold to the EGalim promotional caps—are outlined in our guide to retail price compliance.
In practice, the rule continues to be circumvented. During Black Friday 2025, UFC-Que Choisir called out Amazon, Boulanger, Rakuten, and Cdiscount.
The issue: prices that had risen a few weeks before the sale, or discounts calculated based on a “suggested retail price” or a “comparison price.”
A misleading discount can result in a fine of €300,000 for an individual and five times that amount for a corporation. But the most likely risk lies elsewhere: being named in an investigation reported by the national press.
What Black Friday Discounts Are Really Worth
Customers can view price histories on product pages, use comparison tools, and check the November surveys featured in one of the newspapers. A starting price created specifically for the occasion can be found in just a few clicks.
Average actual discount on cell phones during Black Friday 2023, compared to the entire month of November . 3.7% on televisions, 0.5% on household appliances.
(UFC-Que Choisir, 65,000 items compared, reported by franceinfo on 11/28/2024)
Counterintuitive: Most advertised discounts have almost no effect on the actual price. Customers know this, and that is precisely what makes the rare genuine discounts credible.
This is where perceived value comes into play: a discount no longer reassures customers if the crossed-out price seems made up.
Our position: Fifty real discounts are better than five thousand fake ones
A uniform discount across the entire catalog eats into profits everywhere and fails to win customers over anywhere. Customers compare only a small portion of the product lineup: the event’s featured items—the ones they’ve already had their eye on.
For those items, the discount must be genuine, substantial, and well-documented. For the rest, a justifiable margin can be maintained without damaging the brand’s price perception.
This decision requires identifying the products that are actually being compared and tracking them against the competition throughout the entire process.
Without a reflex to match prices: responding to every price cut by the competition turns a strong market position into a price war.
The exit strategy for the operation is decided before entry
Many promotions are extended by default because no decision has been made regarding when and for which items the promotion will end. The scarcity effect wears off, and the promotional price becomes the expected price.
There's a lesser-known reason to plan your outing in advance: Black Friday prices continue to have an impact for 30 days.
A TV that normally sells for €600 drops to €450 during Black Friday, then goes back up to €600 on December 2.
On December 15, the retailer plans to announce a “Christmas sale.” The lowest price over the previous 30 days was €450: this is the price used as the basis for calculating the advertised discount.
A Christmas sale priced at €499 cannot, therefore, be presented as a discount. The scale of Black Friday has exhausted December’s promotional leeway.
In other words, the discount applied at the end of November is also paid for in December. This is a timing decision that must be made before the transaction.
The stock that remains after the operation follows a different logic—that of the markdown, which has its own rules governing pace and depth.
Booper natively calculates and archives the 30-day reference price for each item involved in a transaction: the basis for a discount can be determined in just a few minutes.
During the process, competitors' prices collected online are matched to your products through product matching. Each adjustment is simulated before being applied to assess its impact on sales, margin, and inventory.
Is your Black Friday reference price based on a 30-day period, or on an Excel spreadsheet updated the day before?
30 minutes to objectively assess the compliance and profit potential of your next transaction.
Frequently Asked Questions
- The Booper Solution: Promotion management software
- Promotional Pricing: 7 Strategies to Stop Eroding Your Margins
- Promotion Management Tool: What It Must Demonstrate Before Signing the Contract
- Sales on Fresh Organic Produce: When a Good Promotion Cannibalizes Your Sales
- Simulating a promotion: incremental, cannibalization, and margin arbitrage
What is the reference price rule for Black Friday in France?
As of May 28, 2022, an advertised discount must be calculated based on the lowest price charged by the seller during the preceding 30 days, rather than a price recorded immediately before the transaction.
This rule applies all year round, not just on Black Friday.
What are the consequences for a retailer that advertises a fake discount during Black Friday?
A discount calculated based on an inaccurate reference price may be considered a misleading commercial practice: a fine of up to €300,000 and two years’ imprisonment for an individual, and a fine five times that amount for a corporation.
The DGCCRF reviews these ads every year, and consumer organizations publish their findings.
Are Black Friday sales really that big of a deal?
Often not. Out of 65,000 items compared by UFC-Que Choisir, the actual average discount on Black Friday 2023 compared to the rest of November was 1.6% on cell phones, 3.7% on televisions, and 0.5% on household appliances.
Does Black Friday generate sales, or does it just shift them?
It accounts for a large share of sales. According to Joko, 62% of purchases during Black Week 2025 were Christmas gifts, and while sales volume fell by 3%, the total value remained virtually unchanged.
The results of an operation must therefore cover November and December, not just that one week.
How can you make a Black Friday promotion profitable?
By focusing genuine discounts on the items customers compare, maintaining margins on the rest, deciding on what to discontinue before introducing new items, and evaluating the operation over November and December combined.
Can we launch a Christmas promotion right after Black Friday?
Yes, but the reference price for the new discount will be the lowest price from the previous 30 days—often the Black Friday price itself. A smaller Christmas discount cannot be advertised as a sale.
What tool should you use to manage your benchmark prices and monitor the competition during Black Friday?
A pricing solution that automatically records the lowest price for each SKU over the past 30 days, continuously monitors competitors' prices, and simulates each price adjustment before implementing it.
Sources
- Légifrance, Article L112-1-1 of the Consumer Code, effective as of May 28, 2022:legifrance.gouv.fr
- UFC-Que Choisir, “Black Friday 2025: More Questionable Prices,” November 26, 2025:quechoisir.org
- UFC-Que Choisir, 65,000 items, Black Friday 2023 compared to November 2023, reported by franceinfo on November 28, 2024:franceinfo.fr
- Joko, Black Week 2025 Report (anonymized bank transactions from one million French people, survey of 60,000 users), as reported by Ecommerce Nation on December 22, 2025:ecommerce-nation.fr
- Example with figures: an illustrative case study created for the article, without customer data.
Pricing in the foodservice industry is structured in three tiers: foodservice distributors set net prices on a customer-by-customer basis; institutional foodservice adjusts its prices according to a contract clause; and commercial foodservice sets menu prices subject to constraints related to ingredient costs and local competition.
Each level has its own timing mechanism, and the one that passes on price changes most slowly absorbs the difference. For a distributor, profit margins are lost primarily in the time lag between a price increase and its implementation, and in discounts granted once and never adjusted.
Managing toy pricing involves setting a price for each product that is appropriate for the time of year, the product’s lifecycle, and what customers are comparing it to. Specialists generate 64% of their sales from January through October: it’s outside of the Christmas season that profit margins are determined, when prices aren’t simply imposed.
A new brand stands out early on, a classic holds its ground, and a birthday gift is chosen based more on price range than on a discount. Baby products are priced like equipment, based on trust and product line consistency, and post-holiday unsold inventory—which cannot be destroyed—is sorted by individual item.
The price of home appliances is determined more by the purchasing situation than by the specific appliance itself. Replacing an appliance after it breaks down is urgent, and while comparisons are typically made among a few benchmark models, built-in appliances are evaluated based on the total cost estimate, and small appliances are chosen based on budget ranges, often as gifts.
Aligning the entire product line with the lowest-priced clearance items means focusing on sales where customers compare prices the least. The annual renewal of product lines disrupts price comparisons and sales history, but this is corrected through product matching and cross-selling, and the actual margin is reflected in total sales, including services.