British shoppers will spend a third less this Black Friday — or a record amount online. Both forecasts were published this month, and they cannot both be right — because they are measuring different things. Omnisend, surveying 1,076 UK shoppers in August 2026 with research firm Cint, found shoppers plan to spend £267 on average over the Black Friday and Cyber Monday period, down 32% from £390 last year. Its total for the UK over the period is £9.9 billion, down 32%. Just over half of shoppers — 55% — intend to buy, and 24.8% plan to buy nothing, down from 29.8% last year. VoucherCodes, working with GlobalData, tells a different story: the UK will spend £9.80 billion over the Black Friday weekend, up 3% on £9.52 billion last year, with Black Friday day itself at £3.41 billion, up 1.5%. Its fortnight figure is £25.18 billion, up 2.0%, with online spending over the weekend at £5.29 billion, up 3.3%.
Adobe sees a record
Adobe Analytics, publishing on November 5, expects record UK online sales of £28.52 billion between November 1 and December 31, up 6.2% on last year, with the Cyber Weekend from November 27 to 30 at £4.05 billion and Black Friday itself at £1.24 billion online, up 7.1% — the biggest online day of the year. Discounts are expected to peak at 25% off over the Cyber Weekend, and AI-driven shopping traffic is up 214% year on year, according to Adobe. A Shopify survey of 2,000 UK adults in July 2026 found an average planned spend of £165, down from £181 in 2025, while Cardlytics, in October 2026, expects fourth-quarter spending to be flat — between 1% down and 1% up — with the Black Friday window “not growing”.
Why the forecasts disagree
The forecasts measure different things, over different windows, in different ways. Omnisend measures what shoppers say they intend to spend — self-reported plans, which tend to understate actual spending. VoucherCodes measures forecast retail sales over the Black Friday weekend. Adobe measures actual online transactions over two full months. A shopper who says they will spend less may still spend more, and a forecast of record online sales can sit alongside falling in-store spending. The one point the forecasts agree on is caution. KPMG, surveying 3,000 people and publishing on November 6, found half of British shoppers have deliberately delayed buying something so they can get it in the Black Friday sales — and 23% say they will not buy anything at all, with 48% of those saying they do not trust that prices are better than at any other time of year. For shoppers, the conflicting forecasts are a reminder to check price history before buying: a discount is only a bargain if the price was not raised first.
