Black Friday broke all the records.
At least, that’s what the headlines say.
The question is … did they for you?
Even more importantly, if they didn’t (1) are you alone, and (2) what can you do about it?
That’s what today’s newsletter is all about.
📊 Sean Frank reveals the real numbers + what they mean
🏆 Mike Manheimer shares five ways to keep momentum
🤑 Connor Rolain on how to print more profit in your funnels
Plus, this week’s top-5 headlines in consumer news with links and executive summaries.
With a huge, massive, extra-special bonus at the end.
🎁 It’s a gift guide for operators, by operators … to both support over 40 unsung hero brands + get something for yourself.
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Mike Manheimer
CCO, Postscript
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What I See the Best Brands Doing After the Rush to Keep Momentum Going in Q4
How are you holding up after Black Friday, Cyber Monday?
The last week has been a sprint.
And December doesn’t slow down. It shouldn’t anyway.
If you want to keep revenue rolling without burning out your team, SMS can carry the load.
Here are a few easy, high-ROI campaign ideas you can launch in minutes …
1. “Still Shopping?” Conversations
Just text people and ask what they’re looking for.
You’ll be amazed at how well it converts. You can automate it, use a campaign, or let Shopper handle it for you.
2. Low-Inventory Nudges
Highlight items that are nearly gone to drive urgency.
Perfect for gifting procrastinators. Even more effective with shipping cutoffs.
3. Gift Finder Flow + Guide
Segment by budget or recipient demographics (based on past purchases) and lead shoppers to curated collections.
4. Engaged But Lapsed Buyers
Pull out your subscribers who were clicking but didn’t quite convert and hit them with those shipping deadlines.
5. Variety for Paid Subscribers
Dropping a new product variant or simply want to give subscription buyers a bit of variety? Try a text back campaign.
This one is great after Christmas but before the New Year.
You don’t have to grind through December.
You just have to text smartly. We’ve seen brands finish the year insanely strong with just these few campaigns.
If you’re not on Postscript yet (like all of the brands up above — Jones Road, Pela Case, Kitsch, Grüns, True Classic + so many more) … you can start a free trial.
We’ll even give you $100 in SMS credits to help you kick things off the right way.
The Real Story Behind Black Friday's "Record Numbers"
Shopify dropped its Black Friday numbers.
$6.2b across every merchant
vs 5 billion last year
Up $1.2 BILLION, 24% YoY
Great headline-
Better investor decks.
But the story changes depending on what numbers you read…
Let's talk about what really happened this Black Friday.
And what it means.
Not the press release.
The complicated stuff that matters if you are trying to run a profitable ecom business in 25/26…
1. Shopify’s Numbers Do NOT Tell the Whole Story
Shopify GMV grew 1.2b
How?
Not because everyone is winning.
Shopify includes new merchants added YOY. It isn't a straight same store comp.
They power POS for in-store now. That gets added in. They're onboarding legacy retailers to DTC and migrating huge names.
That gets added in too.
Every new dollar they add props up that 24% without telling you anything about how existing stores actually performed.
It's like saying your portfolio is up 24% but not mentioning you kept dumping more investments in…
The number is bigger.
But did you beat the market?
2. Same-Store Sales Tell a Different Story
For that, we turn to KnoCommerce’s data.
s/o Jeremiah Prummer and team.
Way smaller sample size - $154 million in sales on Black Friday vs Shopify's $6.2 billion.
2.5% of the total.
Here is why it matters.
Kno tracks same-store sales growth.
Apples to apples.
Their data showed 16.5% growth on Black Friday. Now it is +20% midway through Cyber Monday.
Kno doesn't capture in-store purchases.
And the brands using measurement tools like Kno tend to be more sophisticated - you are not running attribution software doing your first million in revenue.
There is selection bias baked into this data.
If we are being honest with ourselves…
WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
If you grew ~15% this Black Friday, you're middle of the pack.
Median performance.
Not great, not terrible.
You did what most brands did.
Hit 25%? You are probably in the top 30% of brands.
Pushing 50%? TOP 10%
You are crushing it. Go buy yourself something nice because you earned it.
But there is another layer.
3. The Inflation Problem Nobody Wants to Talk About
This is where it gets complicated.
Adobe reported $11.8b in online sales on Black Friday up from $10.8 billion last year: 9.2%
Mastercard says it was up 10.4% YOY.
Both step down from
- Shopify’s 24%
- Kno 16-20%
BUT HERE IS THE KICKER.
IN-STORE SALES ONLY GREW 1.7%.
Overall retail sales of ecom + retail came in at 4.1%.
Think about that. Inflation has been running higher than 4.1% for most of this year.
In real terms, overall retail is shrinking.
People are spending more dollars on fewer things because everything costs more.
Total ecom growth looks healthy at 10.4%.
But even that does not tell the whole story.
Luxury drove a ton of sales growth.
YoY growth on luxury was 11% Black Friday
Compare that to 4% for apparel…
Or -4% for electronics & accessories
Rich people kept spending.
But your average consumer?
Different story.
Another part of the picture - price increases accounted for a massive chunk of that growth.
Most people are not selling more units.
They are charging more for the same units because costs went up and you had to pass them along.
This is the macro environment we're all swimming in.
If you had a tough Black Friday, it might not be because you messed up your creative or your media buyer sucks…
It could be you got slapped by the macro.
The average consumer is hurting.
Discretionary spending is getting squeezed.
Gas prices, groceries, rent-
All of it eats into the wallet before anyone's thinking about buying your cool new product.
What This Means For Your Business
Consumer is tough.
Online consumer is harder.
But it's built by the most resilient people on earth because of exactly this kind of complexity.
You cannot look at one headline and call it a day.
The layers matter.
Is Shopify growing? Yes.
They're eating the legacy retail market alive.
That's been happening for years and it's accelerating.
Are same-store sales growing double digits?
Yeah, for a lot of brands they are.
That is healthy given everything happening in the economy.
But if you are wondering why your Black Friday did not hit projections even though every news outlet is celebrating record ecom sales…
YOU ARE NOT CRAZY
The aggregate numbers hide a lot of individual pain.
Some categories crushed it.
Some got bodied.
Some brands found product-market fit.
Some did not.
That's the game.
The innovation that happens in commerce and ads exists because most of us are out here in a knife fight. Trying to make sense of contradictory data.
Trying to predict consumer behavior 6-12 months out so we can order the right amount of inventory. Trying to not go bankrupt.
Also trying to grow.
It's exhausting. It is also what makes this industry special.
Being Thankful for the Journey
Look, I should be more thankful than I am.
Eight years ago, I was a struggling agency guy. My agency might have billed a million a year if we were lucky.
But me and Connor had no money.
We lived together. Uber pool everywhere.
Every single payroll was tight
It was "are we gonna make it" tight.
We had no safety net. No savings. No rich parents writing checks to keep the dream alive.
It either worked or we got jobs. That was it.
We got very lucky.
We found something we could sink our teeth into with Ridge. We found partners who valued our work and were willing to go all in with us.
Eight years later and we did eight figures in the last 7 days.
Black Friday was our biggest day ever.
I just played tennis with some great friends who are all building huge brands.
My wife is my best friend. My house is awesome. I'm building a pool.
I talk ecom every week with my friends and 20,000 people listen to the podcast.
But eight years ago?
We were one bad month from having to give it all up.
Ten years ago I was renting a bunk bed in a house with twelve other guys.
You can change your life in a few short years if you work hard, work on something that can scale, and pray you get a little lucky.
So whether your Black Friday crushed it or fell short, whether you are celebrating or regrouping…
I hope everyone reading this feels as blessed as I do.
Or at least on your way there.
The data tells a complicated story.
But the opportunity is still there.
You just have to be honest about what the numbers really mean.
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Connor Rolain
Head of Growth, HexClad
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When Traffic Peaks, Your Backend Should Print
Higher traffic, higher intent, higher stakes.
At HexClad, one of our biggest unlocks hasn’t been on the front end. It’s treating post-purchase as a revenue engine
During this season’s promotional window, instead of a one-off upsell, we ran sequenced, logic-driven funnels using Aftersell.
The result?
448% increase in post-purchase offer acceptance and six figures in incremental revenue …
From backend efficiency alone.
When traffic is hottest, post-purchase becomes the highest-leverage AOV engine in the stack.
Think you’re squeezing all the value out of your traffic?
Double-check.
Find out what you should be capturing using Aftersell’s Revenue Forecast Calculator.
Plug in your order volume + approximate gross margin to see your monthly and yearly profit potential.
Cash Flow Keeps Us Rich
How We Track Revenue & Ad Spend Hourly During Cyber Five
Curated by the editor of CPG Wire, this week’s biggest headlines in consumer news.
1. Turkish Firm Acquires TRUBAR: Vegconomist
TRUBAR, a clean, plant-based protein bar brand, has been acquired by ETI Gida, a Turkish consumer goods company. Erica Groussman founded the Vancouver-based protein bar brand in 2019, which now retails at 15,000+ doors across North America. TRUBAR surpassed $50M in revenue in 2024. The company expects to hit $100M in 2026.
With brands like BUILT and IQBAR now reaching maturity, look out for more bar deals in the new year.
2. Once Upon a Farm Delays IPO: Just Food
Once Upon a Farm has delayed its IPO until 2026 due to the government shutdown and a backlog of filings at the SEC. CEO John Foraker also implied that listing during the holiday season would not be optimal.
The children’s nutrition platform launched in 2015, and LTM net sales as of June 30th exceeded $200M, up from $66M in 2022. It will be interesting to see if Once Upon a Farm actually lists on the NYSE, or if this is a gambit to drum up an acquisition.
3. Athletic Brewing Hits Major Milestones: Publication
Athletic Brewing, a leader in the non-alcoholic beer category, will produce 500K barrels this year, up from just under 400K barrels in 2024. More impressively, Athletic Brewing is now a top-10 craft brewer after just seven years in business. Soon, it will be rubbing elbows with icons like Sierra Nevada, Lagunitas, and Goose Island as a top-five craft brewer in the US.
4. Ritter Sport Purchases Chocolove: Confectionery Production
German chocolate firm Ritter Sport is expanding its presence in the U.S. by acquiring Chocolove, a Boulder-based specialty chocolate manufacturer. Chocolove will be folded into Ritter Sport’s newly established US division.
The acquisition significantly expands Ritter’s manufacturing capabilities in the US — a key growth market for the German confectionery firm. Timothy Moley founded Chocolove in 1995.
5. French Bloom Vertically Integrates: The Drinks Business
French Bloom, a Paris-based purveyor of non-alcoholic sparkling wines, has acquired an estate in Limoux as the company vertically integrates.
The acquisition includes 25 hectares of vineyard land; the estate will be fully operational by September 2026. French Bloom has been on a roll: LVMH took a minority stake in 2024, and the brand partnered with Formula 1 earlier this year.
Big, Huge, Extra Surprise
On Black Friday, we sent out something different …
A gift guide of over 40 unsung hero brands.
These weren’t nine-figure behemoths. These were from you, for you, and featuring you!
The response was phenomenal.
At the end, we said to write back showing proof-of-purchase, and we’d pick one person to send Rainer Watch’s “Everything Bundle” (priced at $1,356.25)!
In true Black Friday, Cyber Monday fashion …
We’re extending our offer.
But only for another 24 hours.
This is not a contest. There are no “winners.” Just a cool way to help support David + the rest of the brands.
Check out the guide.
Reply with a screenshot of what you bought.
I’ll keep putting everyone into a Google Sheet. Run a randomizer through ChatGPT. And announce who gets it tomorrow.
With thanks and anticipation,
Aaron Orendorff 🤓
Chief Content Officer
Disclaimer: Special thanks to Postscript and Aftersell for sponsoring today’s newsletter.