The new face of Black Friday: AI, alternative data, and the rise of Chinese e-tailers

AI-driven retail technologies, the rise of new e-commerce giants, and growing sustainability awareness are redefining Black Friday shopping – from environmental impact and returns to conscious, data-driven retail strategies.

Black Friday 2024 provided one of the clearest illustrations yet of how profoundly global e-commerce is changing. According to Salesforce, online sales during Cyber Week reached USD 314.9 billion, with Black Friday remaining the single strongest day.¹

The most notable development, however, was the shifting balance of power among platforms. In the US, Temu, Shein, and TikTok Shop recorded rapid year-on-year growth, even as established American retailers posted flat or slightly negative performance. TikTok Shop’s sales rose by 226%, while Temu and Shein continued to expand through a blend of low pricing, social-driven discovery, and finely tuned AI-enabled personalisation.² This momentum may face new pressures in 2026, when the EU removes the duty-free threshold for small parcels – a change likely to increase costs for platforms that depend on shipments valued below EUR 150.³

Even before the pandemic, online activity was overtaking in-store sales. The shift accelerated in 2020, when retailers broadened their promotions across several weeks to encourage digital purchases and reduce store traffic, pushing online participation past 100 million shoppers in the US for the first time.

AI boosts sales

Recent years have seen Black Friday evolve from a single day into an extended shopping period that begins on the last Friday in November and ends a week later – known as ‘Cyber Week’. Today, however, many retailers extend further still, and nearly seven in ten Americans now see it as a month-long season, with a growing share tracking deals from early November and favouring online channels over physical stores.⁴

In 2019, Black Friday surpassed Cyber Monday as the busiest day for online shopping, and Cyber Week has now become a key component of many online retailers’ annual sales. Forecasts for Cyber Week 2025 in the US project consumer spending above USD 75 billion, potentially surpassing the USD 76 billion recorded during Cyber Week 2024.⁵

Emerging trends in shopper behaviour reveal that consumers increasingly rely on digital tools, deal-optimisation strategies, and algorithmic discovery to manage price sensitivity; while younger shoppers – particularly Gen Z – blend entertainment, social influence, and value hunting even as planned spend moderates.⁶

A survey by Adobe also reports a sharp rise in AI-powered shopping, with AI-driven traffic to retail sites expected to increase 520% year-on-year, and over a third of consumers already using AI for research, recommendations, deal-finding, and gift inspiration – signalling that 2025 could be the first season in which AI meaningfully shapes holiday purchasing behaviour at scale.⁷

Major retailers are already responding, with Target, Walmart, Ralph Lauren, and others launching conversational shopping assistants, while new tools from OpenAI, Google, and Amazon enable instant checkout, real-time stock queries, and automated price-drop purchasing, highlighting the acceleration toward AI-mediated commerce.⁸

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The rise of ‘alternative data’

Behind these trends lies a broader technological shift. Retailers across the value chain are now turning to AI-powered models capable not just of responding to demand, but of anticipating it. These systems draw on vast pools of ‘alternative data’ – everything from web searches and app downloads to geo-location signals, spending patterns, airport traffic, insurance and, in some jurisdictions, prescription data.

Analysed at scale, this mosaic enables companies to forecast regional demand, refine inventory decisions, and tailor offers well before consumers make their choices. Generative AI is also increasingly assisting shoppers directly: tools such as Perplexity’s AI commerce platform, Amazon’s AI assistant Rufus, and Google Lens’s AI-powered image recognition help consumers research products, compare prices, and make purchases more efficiently, creating a more personalised and seamless experience.

For investors, the rise of alternative data is creating opportunities of its own. Dedicated firms that specialise in gathering and structuring these datasets have multiplied from around 100 in the 2010s to more than 2,000 today.⁹ Deloitte expects the sector to reach USD 137 billion by 2030, with providers potentially overtaking traditional financial data companies as early as 2029.¹⁰

At Lombard Odier, our DataEdge Market Neutral strategy applies these insights to build market-neutral equity portfolios with strong alpha potential and low correlation to traditional asset classes. By tracking consumer behaviour via alternative data sources, the strategy seeks predictive insight on corporate fundamentals ahead of earnings revisions, with a 70–80% hit rate target and minimal correlation to traditional indices – offering a systematic, data-driven approach to alpha generation.

Read also: Smarter shopping: 2025 trends to watch, from sustainability to AI

‘Conscious shopping’

Yet this period of rapid innovation also casts a sharper light on the environmental cost of major shopping events. It’s estimated that in 2024, Black Friday truck deliveries in Europe alone generated an estimated 1.2 million tonnes of CO₂, 94% more than in an average week.¹¹ Delivery volumes can surge nearly tenfold compared with the rest of the year, while returns add further pressure: around 30% of items purchased during Black Friday are sent back, often destroyed rather than resold due to logistical constraints.¹²

At the same time, a growing number of consumers are seeking to shop more consciously: 22% of global shoppers now actively prioritise environmentally friendly products and transparent, ethical business practices.¹³ Among younger buyers, the trend is even more pronounced: research shows that 63% of Gen Z consumers and 62% of Millennials are willing to pay more for ethically made items.¹⁴

This creates a striking paradox. Gen Z, which is driving the surge in TikTok Shop’s, Temu’s, and Shein’s sales – brands renowned for their ecological and social controversies – are simultaneously the most likely to consider sustainability in their purchases. The apparent contradiction stems from social and economic pressures: younger consumers feel compelled to follow fast-moving fashion trends amplified on social media, while often lacking the means to consistently buy sustainable alternatives.¹⁵

By 2030, Gen Z’s spending power is projected to surge nearly fivefold – from USD 2.7 trillion in 2024 to USD 12.6 trillion globally by 2030¹⁶ – signalling that their values and behaviours will continue to shape retail practices and potentially drive demand for more sustainable shopping options, even amid the persistence of fast-fashion consumption.

Understanding the bigger picture

The growing interest in sustainability is reshaping how consumers and companies approach this peak season. Alongside rising concern over emissions and delivery volumes, attitudes toward product lifespan are changing: consumers buy far more items than they once did, yet keep them for far less time, contributing to a system in which a truckload of textiles is landfilled or incinerated every second.¹⁷

With 78% of consumers considering sustainability important when choosing a product or retailer¹⁸, momentum is growing for resale platforms like Vestiaire Collective, repair services, and circular business models designed to extend the life of goods and reduce waste.

From recycled materials to product durability, traceability, and ‘people- and planet-friendly’ labels like B Corp^TM, many brands are placing greater emphasis on sustainability across sectors. This includes food innovators like ice-cream maker Sammontana, which is rethinking its entire value chain to make sustainability a core ingredient in every scoop; car makers such as Mercedes-Benz, which is aiming for a fully carbon-neutral fleet by 2039 and embedding sustainability across its vehicles and manufacturing footprint; and hospitality sector pioneers, with innovators like the Bambu Indah hotel, designed entirely around its natural surroundings and recognised with the International Sustainability Award 2024¹⁹.

For retailers and investors alike, the convergence of data-driven insight and sustainability considerations is setting the direction for the year ahead, with the growing use of alternative data offering new ways to anticipate consumer trends – and one in which understanding Black Friday means looking not only at sales, but at the systems, technologies, and environmental pressures behind them.