Every founder I talk to feels the exact same way about BFCM. It’s a mix of hype and stress.
Once it’s over, most people only brag about “record GMV” and “highest traffic ever” even though those numbers don’t really mean they actually made money.
Those numbers actually don't tell you much. GMV and traffic alone don’t prove success, because both profitable brands and unprofitable brands can have the exact same big numbers.
Here’s Shopify's own BFCM recap of 2025 gives the headline stats:
$14.6B in sales across the weekend, up 27% year over year
81 million people bought something
Sales peaked at $5.1M a minute around noon on Black Friday
15,800 stores made their first sale ever that weekend.
Here's what BFCM 2025 looked like at the store level, across the brands running Aimerce:
This is why we run this Academy every year.
Starting this week, we're running weekly newsletters and webinars straight through to Black Friday and beyond, each one built around a specific piece of the stack instead of generic advice.
A few of what's coming
Each session builds on the last, so by the time BFCM hits, your tracking, flows, and ad spend will all be synced up and working toward the same goal.
Just what's actually worked across the brands we work with, turned into something you can run yourself.
👉 First off, follow along with the Aimerce BFCM Klaviyo & Meta Academy 2026, our free series for DTC brands running through mid-December, here: https://www.aimerce.ai/bfcm2026
Here's to a smarter, calmer Q4.
Yiqi
