The Story of Black Friday and Cyber Monday: How Amazon, Walmart, Target & Best Buy Turned the Annual Retail Extravaganza Into Their Operating Advantage

From a Philadelphia traffic problem to a 129-country operating system that reshapes how companies think about infrastructure.

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In the 1950s, Philadelphia police used the term “Black Friday” to describe the post‑Thanksgiving chaos when suburban shoppers flooded the city and Army‑Navy football fans overwhelmed downtown retailers. It had nothing to do with profitability. Retailers hated the label.

By the 1980s, as sales momentum slowed, retail executives rebranded the term. They created the “in the red to in the black” myth, a narrative that Friday’s sales pushed retailers from loss (red ink) to profit (black ink). The story was invented. It worked. The term stuck.

For five decades, Black Friday remained an American phenomenon. Then the internet eliminated geography.

In 2005, Ellen Davis of the National Retail Federation noticed something in the transaction data: online shopping spiked on the Monday after Thanksgiving. The timing was practical. The NRF coined “Cyber Monday” and legitimized it as a shopping event. The first Cyber Monday generated $484 million in sales.

That transaction data, rather than marketing strategy, laid the groundwork for what would become the world’s largest synchronized shopping event.

Global BFCM sales grew from $25B (2015) to $74.4B (2024), while US Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined grew from $6.1B to $24.1B over the same period. The phenomenon transformed from a regional American event into a global operating infrastructure.

Why One Weekend Became a Month

By 2015, something structural shifted. Retailers stopped treating Black Friday as a single day. They started calling it “Black Friday Week.” Then “Black November.” By 2024, the promotional event stretched from October 15 to December 1—a 47‑day window.

A single‑day demand spike creates three problems: bottlenecks in fulfillment centers, safety risks when millions of customers converge simultaneously, and unpredictable demand forecasting. Spreading demand across weeks allows retailers to optimize capacity utilization, stage shipments, and pre‑position inventory based on predictable daily demand curves.

As one retail operator noted internally: “You can’t run $50 billion through the system in 36 hours. You have to distribute it.”

The calendar flattened, but the economics remained compressed. Retailers realized they could use October, November, and December as a single operational block, one where supply chain systems ran at maximum throughput and inventory decisions had stakes that justified year‑round infrastructure investments.

The Global Spread: 129 Countries, $74.4B, Two Competing Poles

The internet made geography irrelevant. By 2024, BFCM was observed in 129 of 195 countries, a level of international participation matched only by Christmas (in more than 160 countries) and Ramadan (in more than 120 countries). It was no longer an American event. It was universal and global.

Singles Day (11/11) in China generated $132.6B in 2024, more than 5x the entire US Cyber Week ($41.1B). The emergence of two competing global shopping poles reflects the bifurcation of retail infrastructure, with Eastern commerce organized around Chinese platforms and manufacturing, and Western commerce centered on Amazon and US logistics networks.

But the spread was not uniform. Cross‑border e‑commerce revealed regional power dynamics. Thailand experienced a 201% year-over-year growth in BFCM sales in 2020. France grew 106%. India grew 104%. But these countries weren’t building their own BFCM infrastructure, they were importing American retail operating models.

Simultaneously, China created its own mega‑event. Alibaba’s Singles Day (11/11) became a festival generating $132.6B between Alibaba and JD.com, with nearly 300,000 brands participating. It was five times larger than US Cyber Week, but invisible to Western consumers and media.

The global retail calendar bifurcated into two poles: a Western pole (BFCM) and an Eastern pole (Singles Day). Both served as annual stress tests for logistics networks. Both drove infrastructure investment decisions for the rest of the year.

BFCM expanded from a 1‑day event in 2005 to a 30‑day season by 2025, with online transactions rising from 15% to 82% and mobile commerce driving 70% of all transactions. This evolution forced retailers to redesign operations from managing discrete daily spikes to orchestrating month‑long demand waves.

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The Robotics‑First, Zero‑Latency Machine

Amazon’s BFCM advantage begins with one statement from founder Jeff Bezos, later echoed by operations executives: “We treat Black Friday and Cyber Monday as our Super Bowl. Everything else in the year is preparation for those days.”

That mindset cascaded into structural choices.

The Network Architecture

Amazon operates 185 fulfillment centers (FCs) across North America alone, as well as hundreds of same-day delivery sites and sortation nodes. The FCs are not traditional warehouses. They are robotics‑enabled systems designed for peak‑volume processing.

In a typical Amazon FC, the workflow is: customer order → system assigns pod → Hercules robot fetches pod with inventory to a human picker → picker removes items → items move to pack stations → robots route packed boxes to outbound areas. The entire cycle from order to ship can occur in under 30 minutes.

During BFCM, Amazon deploys over 1 million robots across its network. These robots are not humanoid. They’re mobile shelving units that move inventory to stationary humans, then remove the shelving once picking is complete. The design minimizes walking distance, reduces the risk of injury, and enables the system to process orders three times faster than a traditional warehouse layout.

Amazon’s Shreveport, Louisiana FC already operates at 25% reduced workforce compared to conventional facilities, with the roadmap pointing toward “lights‑out” automation, minimal human presence, and full robotic operation.

Algorithmic Inventory Positioning

Where the robots move, the inventory is determined by AI systems. Amazon’s Wellspring platform utilizes address-level delivery intelligence, tracking inventory location, movement speed, and the optimal facility for fulfillment in milliseconds to minimize delivery times.

The system optimizes for speed. A customer in Portland, Oregon, orders a best‑selling USB cable. The system instantly checks:

1. Is it in Portland?

2. If not, which distribution point can deliver it today?

3. Route to that point.

This is not new supply chain optimization. It’s preemptive inventory allocation. Every BFCM, Amazon refines its demand forecasting. It learns which SKUs move in which geographies, then pre‑positions inventory accordingly the following year. A best‑selling toy in Phoenix in 2024 gets positioned there in Q3 of 2025, even before orders arrive.

The Marketplace Moat

60% of BFCM sales on Amazon flow from independent sellers using Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). Sellers ship inventory to Amazon’s FCs weeks ahead of peak. Amazon charges fulfillment fees per unit (determined by size/weight) to cover labor and logistics costs. During BFCM, those fees increase. It’s peak pricing for capacity.

This structure is genius. Sellers fund inventory. Sellers pay for fulfillment. Amazon monetizes the infrastructure. The platform absorbs demand risk while sellers absorb inventory risk. When demand surges, Amazon’s fixed costs scale minimally—the infrastructure already exists.

Harvard Business School research shows Amazon’s fulfillment costs approach 18% of an item’s retail price on FBA. That’s expensive. But it’s also defensible. A seller cannot find equivalent fulfillment at that price anywhere else at scale.

Deal Architecture as Operating System

Amazon runs Lightning Deals—limited‑quantity promotions that sell out in minutes. Best Deals, discounted items across specific categories. Coupons—percentage discounts applied at checkout. But it’s not chaotic. Every deal slot is a scarce resource managed by internal systems.

Across BFCM 2024, Amazon ran 42.5% fewer total deals than Black Friday alone, yet Cyber Monday generated higher revenue per promotion. Amazon learned that fewer, more targeted promotions drive higher margins than a flood of indiscriminate discounts.

Amazon deployed 1 million robots by 2025, a 1,000x increase from 2012. Automation rose from 5% to 75% of operations, creating a structural moat competitors cannot replicate without equivalent capital investment and engineering talent.

The Omnichannel Juggernaut

Walmart made a different architectural choice. Where Amazon invested in robotics density and same‑day delivery speed, Walmart invested in store density and omnichannel integration.

Walmart operates 4,700 US stores within 10 miles of 90% of the American population. During BFCM, those stores became mini‑fulfillment centers.

Stores as Fulfillment Hubs

A customer orders online from Walmart on Wednesday. The system checks: Is this item in a nearby store? If so, a store employee picks the item from the shelf, packs it in the backroom, and hands it to a carrier for same-day or next-day delivery. If not available in a nearby store, the order is routed to a regional distribution center.

This is fundamentally different from Amazon’s model. Amazon pulls inventory from its own FCs to delivery stations. Walmart pulls from the closest store in its network, then uses partners (Shipt, DoorDash, carriers) for last‑mile delivery.

During BFCM 2024, Walmart promised three‑hour delivery to 95% of American homes. It kept that promise because inventory was distributed. No single facility had to process millions of orders simultaneously. The load is distributed across 4,700 nodes.

To support this model, Walmart built market-based fulfillment centers (MFCs)—separate inventory pools located within stores for fulfilling online-only orders. The MFC in Topeka, Kansas, processes online orders for a 50‑mile radius, then routes them through in‑store pickup or regional delivery.

AI‑Driven Inventory Rebalancing

Walmart’s central operations teams run AI systems that identify hot items in real time. A best‑selling snow shovel in Colorado? The system automatically schedules shipments to that region’s distribution centers and stores. A markdown winter coat in Texas? It routes inventory to northern states, where the weather is expected to drive demand.

This is not predictive—it’s reactive and preemptive. Walmart’s system predicts demand, then instructs the supply chain to meet it before orders arrive. The company calls it “software to synchronize logistics”, no new buildings required, just smarter routing.

Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS)

Similar to Amazon’s FBA, Walmart Fulfillment Services enable independent sellers to utilize Walmart’s logistics infrastructure. 75% of top Walmart sellers use WFS. During the BFCM peak, WFS charges storage fees of $ 1.50 or more per unit over 30 days to incentivize inventory turnover. Slow‑moving inventory gets expensive. Fast‑moving inventory enables profitability.

This is a classic example of marketplace economics: sellers fund inventory, while retailers monetize the infrastructure. The platform absorbs demand risk while sellers absorb inventory risk.

Value Plus Speed as Marketing

Walmart’s BFCM positioning is straightforward: offering the lowest prices, fast delivery, and no scarcity. Where retailers traditionally used “doorbuster” limited-quantity deals to drive traffic, Walmart ran extensive inventory, multiple promotional waves, and offered five-hour early access to Walmart+ members.

Abundance signals trust. Scarcity signals risk. Walmart chose trust.

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The Market‑Based Logistics Innovator

Target made a third architectural choice. It built a sortation layer between stores and last‑mile delivery.

The Sortation Engine

Target operates 11 regional sortation centers. Each receives packages from 30‑40 nearby stores. Store employees pick orders from local inventory, pack them in the backroom, and send them to the sortation center. There, packages are batched, sorted by delivery neighborhood, and routed to Shipt drivers or third‑party carriers.

While not new, the scale is unprecedented. During regular seasons, Target’s sortation centers process 30,000 packages per day. During BFCM, that surges to 400,000+ packages per day across all 11 centers combined. Some individual centers hit 30,000 packages per day—a 1,000% increase from normal.

The sortation layer does one thing: optimizes the last‑mile economics. Instead of shipping individual packages from stores to customers, Target batches packages geographically, then runs efficient neighborhood routes.

Market‑Based Fulfillment

Every order Target receives goes through a routing algorithm. The system asks:

• Where is this customer?

• Where is this product?

• What’s the fastest, cheapest way to get it there?

If the product is in a local store and delivery is required today, the store will pick it up. If it’s online‑only inventory and delivery is needed tomorrow, the nearest sortation center handles it. If it’s a high-ticket item requiring white-glove service, it is routed to a regional fulfillment center with specialized packing.

This is market‑based fulfillment—not a fixed fulfillment model, but a dynamic algorithm that matches demand to the most efficient node. MIT Sloan research validates this approach as highly capital‑efficient. You don’t need excess capacity in any single location if the system can route demand dynamically.

AI‑Driven Hyper‑Local Supply Chain

Target’s demand forecasting operates at the store‑SKU level, not the regional level. The system predicts demand for specific products in specific stores. A peppermint latte syrup in Wisconsin moves differently than in California. The forecasting system knows this.

During BFCM, Target’s system ramps up prediction intensity. It learns which categories sell in which geographies, adjusts replenishment timing, and alerts store teams about inventory shortages before they occur. Store associates utilize AI chatbots to answer customer questions and locate inventory in real-time.

Amazon leads in robotics (100%) and AI forecasting (100%). Walmart dominates stores-as-hubs (100%) and same-day delivery (95%). Target excels in sortation centers (90%). Each company built distinct structural advantages; no company dominates all categories. The industry average lags significantly across most infrastructure types, revealing why incumbents struggle to match leaders.

The High‑Touch Electronics Fulfillment Node

Best Buy occupies a narrower niche but executes it uniquely. The company sells complex, high-ticket items, including laptops, TVs, and appliances. BFCM is critical ($2B+ event) but different from apparel or home goods.

Automation Without Replacing Judgment

Best Buy’s Nichols, NY, distribution center uses autonomous guided vehicles (AGVs) to handle nearly half of inbound pallets. But the automation stops at a specific point. Items challenging for robots, such as fragile electronics and multiple-part bundles, are routed to human stations.

This is a human‑robot collaboration. The system optimizes for what each does best. Robots move heavy, uniform pallets. Humans handle complex assembly, fragile items, and exceptions. MIT Technology Review research shows this hybrid model outperforms full automation or full manual labor.

Stores as Service Fulfillment Nodes

Best Buy converted over 340 stores into ship-from-store hubs. But BFCM at Best Buy is tied to services, not just products. A customer buys a TV during BFCM and needs installation. A customer buys a laptop; they want it set up. Best Buy’s fulfillment network must accommodate product delivery, as well as scheduling service technicians.

The company extended curbside pickup hours to midnight on some days. A customer can order at 9 PM and pick up at a store by midnight. For high‑ticket electronics, where delivery delays create anxiety, same‑day pickup changes the value proposition.

Live delivery tracking with AI-powered ETAs provides customers with millisecond updates. A customer watching a TV get delivered knows exactly when it arrives. If there’s a delay, they know why. This reduces support calls and improves perceived service.

Service as the Moat

Best Buy’s competitive advantage has become its unique integration of logistics with service. Amazon can’t easily offer installation. Walmart’s logistics is built for quick, simple deliveries. Best Buy’s logistics exists to move high‑value items and schedule complex services simultaneously.

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By 2024, the playbook had become clear. Winners were not those with the best marketing or lowest prices. Winners were those with the best operating architecture. And that architecture had standardized across several key dimensions.

Structural Innovations That Became Industry Standard

Stores as distributed fulfillment infrastructure. This is now table stakes. MIT Sloan research identifies this as the dominant omnichannel model, transforming retail supply chains. Retailers that don’t use stores for BFCM fulfillment are leaving money on the table.

Automation in DCs and FCs. Robotics investment was once a differentiator. By 2024, it was expected. MIT Technology Review confirms robotics and AGVs for high‑volume peaks are now table stakes. The question is how many and how deeply integrated they can become with AI systems.

Sortation centers as a middle layer. Target pioneered this. Now it’s spreading. The sortation center batches store‑picked orders for efficient last‑mile routing. MIT CTL research highlights this as key to batching efficiency, a concept now widely adopted across retail.

Embedded marketplace fulfillment. Amazon’s FBA model is replicated by Walmart (WFS), Target (fulfillment partnerships), and others. The economics are powerful: sellers fund inventory, retailers monetize infrastructure. Harvard Business School analysis shows this converts fixed logistics into platform services.

AI/ML forecasting and inventory positioning. Retailers that don’t have SKU‑level demand forecasting are operating blind. McKinsey research shows 60% of manufacturers will invest in AI‑enabled automation by 2025. BFCM accelerated that timeline.

Strategic Patterns That Diffused Across Retail

Extended promotional windows. Nobody runs BFCM on a single day. Retailers “pull forward” promotions to October or November to spread demand. McKinsey’s research documents this explicitly: retailers run multi‑wave events to de‑risk logistics.

Omnichannel convenience as the core value proposition. BOPIS (Buy Online Pick In Store), curbside pickup, lockers, alternative pickup locations—these were once nice‑to‑haves. By 2024, they were table stakes. HBR analysis shows mobile alerts and real‑time shopping promotions are now required for competitiveness.

Membership‑linked logistics perks. Prime’s success with free faster shipping created a playbook. Walmart+ offers five‑hour early access and free delivery. Target Circle 360 provides free next‑day delivery over $35. The model: bundle loyalty, earlier access, and faster shipping to drive membership adoption.

Dynamic pricing and promotion management. Retailers stopped running flat discounts. HBR case studies show step discounts and flash sales outperform blanket markdowns. Real‑time repricing during BFCM is now automated.

Asia‑Pacific dominates cross‑border BFCM with $24.3B in market size and 120% year‑over‑year growth in 2020, followed by Europe ($18.7B, 85% growth). Cross‑border e‑commerce now represents 18.6% of total online sales globally, demonstrating BFCM’s evolution from an American shopping event to a global operating infrastructure.

For all the standardization, differentiation persists. Certain capabilities remain structural moats.

Amazon’s robotics‑at‑scale. The New York Times reported that Amazon plans to automate 75% of operations within five years—replacing 600,000 potential future jobs through robotics. Amazon has deployed 1 million robots. The capital required to match that is staggering. The engineering talent required is scarcer. The operational complexity is immense. Competitors can build smaller robotic networks. They cannot match Amazon’s density.

Amazon allocates 20% of BFCM operating costs to technology and automation (vs. 8% industry average), enabling it to reduce labor costs to 28% of total spend. Walmart’s stores-as-hubs model concentrates 40% of peak costs in labor, reflecting its reliance on a distributed store network. This structural cost divergence compounds annually. Amazon’s automation investments reduce per‑unit fulfillment costs while Walmart’s labor dependency creates ongoing wage pressure. Target and Best Buy operate in between, but neither approaches Amazon’s technology‑cost ratio. The chart reveals why Amazon’s robotics moat is economically durable: competitors cannot match its automation spending without fundamental business model restructuring.

Walmart’s store density and logistics innovation. Walmart has 4,700 stores within 10 miles of 90% of America. That’s a 50‑year head start that cannot be duplicated quickly. Walmart is also pioneering drone delivery in five states, aiming for granular delivery promises, exact day/time windows, and bundled deliveries. This infrastructure layer is difficult to replicate.

Target’s integrated sortation‑store‑Shipt fabric. The market‑based fulfillment model requires sortation center infrastructure, store retrofitting, and logistics partnership coordination. MIT Sloan research validates this as highly capital‑intensive and operationally complex.

Best Buy’s logistics‑plus‑service integration. Combining product fulfillment with service scheduling (installation, support, repairs) creates unique network effects. Amazon and Walmart can’t easily add this dimension. Best Buy’s logistics exists to move complex, high‑value items and coordinate services simultaneously.​

The economic moats are equally defensible. FBA’s network effects, sellers choosing Amazon because inventory is pre‑positioned and Prime shipping is guaranteed, create a feedback loop. Membership ecosystems like Prime (members spend 3x more than non‑Prime customers) create captive demand.​

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The deepest insight about BFCM is this: it is no longer a discount event. It is an operating system.

Companies that have won treat BFCM as an annual stress test for their entire supply chain architecture. What breaks during BFCM gets fixed the next year. What scales gets replicated. What works during peak becomes the template for the rest of the year.

Amazon’s BFCM playbook—robotics utilization, dynamic inventory placement, deal architecture optimization—becomes Amazon’s standard operating procedure. Walmart’s three‑hour delivery promise during peak becomes Walmart’s year‑round goal. Target’s market‑based fulfillment during BFCM becomes Target’s operational model.

The $74.4 billion in global sales during a 30‑day window is not the point. The point is that this concentrated demand surge forces companies to answer fundamental questions:

• Can our logistics handle 3x normal volume?

• Will our AI forecasting system break under load?

• Can we scale fulfillment without proportional labor increases?

• What’s our bottleneck, and how do we design around it?

Companies that answer these questions decisively during BFCM build better operating models. Companies that don’t will struggle.

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The Global Future: Two Poles, Local Adaptation

BFCM is global, but it is not uniform in its application. The bifurcation between Eastern and Western retail calendars is likely to persist. Singles’ Day dominates Asia‑Pacific. BFCM dominates the Americas and Europe. However, both serve the same purpose: they are synchronized demand pulses that justify year-round logistics investments.

For operators and strategists, the implication is clear: The companies that have won are the ones that re‑architected themselves around a new operating tempo. They did not optimize for BFCM as an event. They designed BFCM as a permanent operating system, one that runs at full throttle for 30 days, then sustains partial capacity for the remaining 335 days.

The infrastructure investments are brutal. The supply chain complexity is immense. The margin for error is severely limited. However, the companies that implement this architecture (Amazon, Walmart, Target, and Best Buy) have built structural advantages that competitors spend years trying to replicate.

The future of retail is not cheaper discounts or better marketing. It’s better logistics, smarter automation, and operating systems designed to withstand a month‑long demand shock that repeats annually, globally, across 129 countries.

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For Black Friday, there is a significant discount for new paid subscribers:

• Monthly: $17 → $5

• Annual: $95 → $30

• Founding Member: $550 → 75 dollars

These tiers are structured so you can either sample the work cheaply or make a long‑term commitment at a fraction of the usual price.​

Founding Members also receive quarterly 30‑minute one‑on‑one working sessions to dig into your company, operating model, or career decisions, plus priority influence over future case studies and frameworks.

Lock in the Black Friday pricing and learn more here:

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Research and Sources Appendix

Academic Research and Business School Cases

Harvard Business School

• Amazon.com’s European Distribution Strategy (HBS 605-002)

• Amazon in 2023: Competing with Complementors

• Competing with Complementors: An Empirical Look at Amazon.com

• Seven-Eleven Japan: Real-time inventory tracking case study

MIT Sloan Management Review & MIT CTL

• “Teaming Humans with Robots Delivers Better Results”

• “What Retailers Must Get Right This Holiday Season”

• “Dreaming of a Black Friday?” (2012)

• “Transforming Retail: Creating Tomorrow’s Agile Environments”

• Annual Omnichannel Supply Chain Studies (238 logistics professionals)

• The Warehouse of the Future

MIT Technology Review

• “AI Robots Take Over Warehouses”

• “A New Generation of AI-Powered Robots is Taking Over Warehouses”

• “Building Supply Chain Resilience with AI”

• “The Robotic Grocery Store of the Future Is Here”

Wharton School / Baker Retailing Center

• Holiday Shopping Studies with First Insight

• “Navigating Holiday Retail Trends Amid Economic Uncertainty”

Top-Tier Media Sources

The New York Times

• “Amazon Plans to Replace Half a Million Jobs With Robots”

• “The Robots Fueling Amazon’s Automation”

• “Black Friday May Have Lost the Chaos but It’s Still Huge for Retailers”

• “Black Friday Shopping Exceeds Industry Estimates”

• “Modern Black Friday Work Force: Postal Clerk, Influencer...”

The Wall Street Journal

• “Walmart Gives Special Bonuses and Pay Raises to Keep Warehouse Workers”

• “Walmart and Target: A Tale of Two Retailers”

• “Logistics Operators Set Cautious Seasonal Hiring Plans”

• “Walmart to Offer Logistics Outside Its Own Marketplace Sales”

WIRED

• “The Man Behind Amazon’s Robot Army Wants Everyone to...”

• “Amazon’s New Robots Are Rolling Out an Automation Revolution”

• “Amazon Has Made a Robot With a Sense of Touch”

Fast Company

• “Amazon is Testing Out Warehouse Robots. Here’s What You Need to Know”

• “Amazon claims its robots aren’t coming for your fulfillment-center job”

• “Here’s how Amazon plans to automate its warehouses in the future”

Harvard Business Review

• “Retailers Can’t Rely on Holiday Gimmicks”

• “Retailers’ Holiday Strategy Doesn’t Have to Be ‘Discount Everything’”

• “Make Black Friday a More Exciting Online Experience”

Retail Industry Research

Deloitte

• Black Friday-Cyber Monday Survey: “Shoppers Rein In Spending”

McKinsey & Company

• Holiday Shopping Trends 2025

• “How Retailers Can De-Risk the 2025 Holiday Shopping Season”

Boston Consulting Group (BCG)

• “How Retailers Can De-Risk the 2025 Holiday Shopping Season”

First Insight / Wharton

• Retailers Expect Supply Chain Disruption Studies

• Study showing 53% more in-store shopping with loyalty programs

Company-Specific Sources and Press

Amazon Corporate

• “Amazon announces 3 AI-powered innovations to get packages to...”

• Inside Amazon’s same-day delivery system preparation

• Amazon facilities gearing up for Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Walmart Corporate

• “Working as Fulfillment Centers, Walmart Stores are the Star of the Last Mile”

• Walmart Marketplace record Black Friday-Cyber Monday sales

• Walmart Marketplace sees record sales during Black Friday-Cyber Monday

Target Corporate

• “How Our Teams Have Prepped to Deliver an Easy, Joyful Holiday”

• Target’s supply chain investments power holiday season ambitions

• Next-day delivery expansion to top 35 cities

Best Buy Corporate

• “Best Buy helps customers get their tech home for the holidays with...”

• Best Buy automates, expands distribution network for holidays

• Extended curbside pickup hours for holiday shopping

Statistics and Market Data

BlackFriday.com / Statistics

• 38 Black Friday Statistics (2024-2025) – $74.4 Billion Online Sales

Queue-it

• 149 Black Friday Statistics Every Retailer Should Know 2025

Exploding Topics

• Latest Cyber Monday Statistics (2025)

Shopify

• Record-high $11.5 billion in sales over BFCM weekend

bPlugins

• Black Friday Cyber Monday Statistics & Trends

Historical and Cultural Sources

Academic

• “Rethinking Black Friday: How AI Can Drive ‘Small Batch’ Personalized...” (WJARR, 2024)

• “Black Friday: From Chaos to a Global Phenomenon” (Substack analysis)

News & Culture

• Los Angeles Times: “Black Friday Frenzy Goes Global, and Not Everyone’s Happy”

• Reuters: “Black Friday consumers go online, rather than stand in line”

• CNBC: “How Black Friday Became a Retail Letdown”

• Experian: “Black Friday Evolves into a Season of Shopping”

Cross-Border E-Commerce

• HeyWorld: Cross-Border eCommerce Black Friday Cyber Monday Perspective

• Allianz: “Black Friday: The Icing on the Cake for US Retail?”

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John Brewton documents the history and future of operating companies at Operating by John Brewton. He is a graduate of Harvard University and began his career as a Phd. student in economics at the University of Chicago. After selling his family’s B2B industrial distribution company in 2021, he has been helping business owners, founders and investors optimize their operations ever since. He is the founder of 6A East Partners, a research and advisory firm asking the question: What is the future of companies? He still cringes at his early LinkedIn posts and loves making content each and everyday, despite the protestations of his beloved wife, Fabiola, at times.