Black Friday might still feel a little way off, but preparing your Amazon activity now gives you time to understand what’s working, improve your product listings and put together offers worth paying attention to.
The opportunity is certainly there. According to Adobe, UK shoppers spent £1.16 billion online on Black Friday in 2025, making it the biggest online shopping day of the year. Across Cyber Weekend, spending reached £3.8 billion. These figures cover UK online retail as a whole, but they give a sense of the demand Amazon sellers will be competing for.
So, where should you focus your attention in the weeks ahead?
A Black Friday purchase can start long before someone clicks “buy”. Amazon’s own guidance highlights that shoppers spend the lead-up exploring gift ideas and building wishlists, recommending that advertisers prepare their product pages weeks ahead of the event.
For sellers, October is a useful opportunity to build visibility and learn which products and search terms attract interest.
Start by reviewing your existing Amazon advertising:
Use those findings to refine your targeting and identify the products you want to support through November. Going into the event with some evidence behind your decisions gives you a stronger starting point for allocating budget.
If you haven’t started yet, there’s still useful work you can do. The priority is to make that preparation part of your plan now.
Advertising can bring people to a listing, but the page itself needs to help them make a decision.
Before increasing spend, look at your priority listings from a customer’s perspective. Can someone quickly understand what the product does, what’s included and whether it’s right for them?
Check that:
Give your listings a check on your phone, too. Adobe found that mobile devices accounted for 61.5% of UK online spending during November and December 2025. That’s a strong reason to make sure your content is easy to understand on a smaller screen.
It’s easy to build every Black Friday message around Christmas presents, but that only covers part of the opportunity.
Ahead of Black Friday 2025, PwC found that 68% of shoppers planned to buy something for themselves. This doesn’t mean they weren’t buying gifts as well, but it does show why personal purchases deserve a place in your planning.
Depending on your range, your customer might be replacing an unreliable appliance, upgrading their headphones or buying something they’ve wanted for months.
Consider how your content speaks to those motivations. Alongside gifting ideas, show how the product solves a problem, fits into someone’s routine or offers an upgrade they can justify.
A discount needs to stand up to comparison.
Which? encourages shoppers to check prices across retailers and use price-history tools, to assess whether an offer represents good value. Sellers should prepare with that same scrutiny in mind.
Review your proposed offers against your usual selling prices and competing products. Does the saving give someone a convincing reason to buy? Is the value clear?
Then check what the offer means for your business. Factor in product costs, Amazon fees, fulfilment and advertising before deciding how far you can discount.
You don’t need to apply the same reduction across your entire range. A focused selection of products with sufficient stock and room for a worthwhile offer can give your campaign a clearer direction.
Decide ahead of time which campaigns deserve additional support and what results would justify increasing their budgets.
Amazon recommends reviewing search-term performance and watching for campaigns running out of budget during peak events. This helps sellers direct spend towards stronger opportunities and keep effective ads running.
For your own plan, agree spending limits and performance targets before the sale begins. Monitor sales alongside advertising costs and the margin left after your discount.
Stock needs to be part of that conversation, too. Check availability across your promoted products and make sure your fulfilment arrangements can support the demand you’re aiming to generate.
The weeks before Black Friday give you time to make your Amazon activity stronger: clearer listings, better-informed targeting and offers that work for both your customers and your business.
Start with your priority products, check what your existing performance is telling you and build your plan from there. You’ll be in a better position to make the most of the event when it arrives.
Need a hand getting your Amazon advertising ready for Black Friday? Get in touch with the Mabo team. We’re happy to help.