Retailers achieve year’s highest sales during Black Friday week
St.Gallen/Lausanne/Bern - With the Monitoring Consumption Switzerland project, researchers at the University of St.Gallen have analyzed Swiss consumer behavior. Black Friday week saw the highest retail sales of the year, they found. On Friday itself, sales were down slightly compared to 2024. The Enterprise for Society Center and Novalytica supported the project.
(CONNECT) Monitoring Consumption Switzerland, a joint initiative of the University of St.Gallen (HSG), the Enterprise for Society Center (E4S), and Novalytica in Bern, has once again quantified Swiss consumer behavior during the year’s Black Friday week. According to a statement from the HSG researchers, the evaluations are based on payments made with credit and debit cards as well as mobile payment methods at points of sale and across e-commerce.
During Black Friday week, Swiss consumer spending rose by 49 per cent compared to the previous week, marking the strongest increase so far this year. On Black Friday itself, 28 November 2025, retail sales spiked by as much as 98 per cent compared to the previous Friday, found the analysis. Another driver of Black Friday sales was e-commerce, reveals HSG: on Black Friday 2025, online sales made up 24 per cent of total sales, compared to 15 per cent in the previous week.
However, compared to the previous year, merchandise sales on Black Friday itself fell by 5 per cent. While the indexed value for 29 November 2024 remained at 220.3, according to the findings, Black Friday this year only reached 209.9. A value of 100 reportedly signifies the average merchandise sales for “Retail: Other Goods” in November 2024. Across the whole Black Friday week, the researchers found that total sales in 2024 and 2025 did not change much.
“The data shows that the slight decline in sales on Black Friday 2025, compared to the previous year, is more pronounced in cities; that is, where the Black Friday effect is greater due to the shopping opportunities,” study authors Winfried Koeniger and Matthias Fengler are quoted as saying.
The study authors conclude that city centers and shopping malls remain key shopping destinations despite the growth of online retail. Price discount campaigns ahead of Black Friday also increasingly spread the rise in sales across the whole week itself, they explain. ce/ja