1800DTC BFCM Playbook
[ Chapter 03 · In collaboration with Intelligems ]

Is Your BFCM Offer Costing You?

Your BFCM offer shouldn’t be left to guesswork. Set it too high, and you’ll eat into your margins. Set it too low, and you won’t give shoppers enough reason to buy.

Here’s what was seen across more than 800 brands, and how you can test to find the optimal offer for you.

[ The discount-depth curve ]

There Is Such a Thing as Too Steep a Discount

There’s a point where you are giving away additional margin without reclaiming it in revenue. Last year, we saw that happen between 10% and 15%.

Brands that discounted past that mark saw similar lifts vs their baseline. Said another way, there was little to no benefit of discounting beyond that rate.

+0%+100%+200%+300%+295%30%++275%20-30%+303%15-20%+290%10-15%+227%5-10%+182%0-5%+218%0-5%+247%5-15%+298%15%+DISCOUNTED BYHELD OR RAISED PRICE BYPAST 10-15%, NO FURTHER LIFTMEDIAN WEEKEND LIFTCHANGE IN WHAT CUSTOMERS ACTUALLY PAID
Too steepYou end up giving away extra margin that you didn’t have to.
Too shallowYour offer is not motivating. You end up giving a discount to people who may have been just as likely to buy at full price.
Holding your priceDiscounting just because it’s BFCM is not always the best choice. We saw many brands have just as successful a BFCM weekend without reducing prices.

853 brands. Discount depth is the change in what a customer actually paid per unit versus that brand’s own baseline, across both list price and discount codes. Each brand is scored against its own typical pre-holiday day, meaning its median daily revenue from 1 July to 31 October 2025, so +200% means each day of the weekend earned three typical days of revenue. Revenue lift, not margin, so the ceiling is where the revenue benefit stops improving rather than the profit-optimal depth. Outcomes inside every band vary more than these medians differ. Attributed to Intelligems (Data Partner).

[ Popular discounts ]

The Most Common Discount We See Is 10–15% Off

Here’s what brands set their discounts to last holiday season. The median brand had a discount of 10.1% with the middle half of brands having a discount between 3.2% and 15.7%.

0%7%14%21%28%3%30%+11%20-30%13%15-20%23%10-15%18%5-10%17%0-5%9%0-5%4%5-15%2%15%+DISCOUNTED BYHELD OR RAISED PRICE BYSHARE OF BRANDSCHANGE IN WHAT CUSTOMERS ACTUALLY PAID

Intelligems BFCM 2025 platform data. Lift is core-BFCM weekend revenue against each brand’s own median daily revenue, 1 July to 31 October 2025. These are period-over-period comparisons against each brand’s own baseline, not A/B tests, so they describe what brands did and how their weekend went, not what caused it. Revenue lift only, not margin. Attributed to Intelligems (Data Partner).

[ Find your optimal offer ]

Test to Find the Offer That Works for the Specifics of Your Brand

There are no silver bullets when it comes to setting an offer. The charts above show medians across the entire market and are meant to form a starting hypothesis rather than give you the answer. The only way to find the optimal offer is through experimentation.

Price cut vs. discountTry experimenting with discount codes vs changing the price directly.
Offer depthStraddle testing allows you to see how behavior changes when you go a bit above and a bit below your “usual” offer to zero in on the optimal.
Offer breadthYou don’t have to discount all of your products. Try running different offers on different sections of your catalog.
Non-price offersThere are offers that don’t rely on a price change. We’ve seen brands find a ton of success with free shipping or a gift with purchase.
Offer timingExperiment with when your offer lands. A steep offer for one day of the holiday vs a smaller offer with a longer shelf life.
Delta vs “normal” discountingYour regular discount amount has a big impact on how shoppers perceive your BFCM offer. Your all-year offers are also worth testing.
[ Common mistakes to avoid ]

Don’t Fall Victim to These BFCM Offer Mistakes

Defaulting to a codeCodes end up being the default lever. 45% of the brands we analyzed promoted through codes alone, compared with 21% that cut prices, and the price-cutters posted the better median weekend.
Copying last yearWhat worked in a different environment or competitive set isn’t a safe default.
Focusing on conversion not profitLowering your price almost always increases conversion, but a higher conversion rate can still mean lower profit.
Discounting halfwayBrands that shaved 0–5% off net price saw the weakest weekend of any group we measured, weaker than brands who cut 10% or more, and weaker than brands who provided no price reduction at all.
Going deeper than you need toPast roughly 10–15%, revenue lift stopped improving in our data, so extra depth beyond that buys little and resets what customers expect from you next year.
[ In collaboration with ] Intelligems

This chapter’s frameworks and testing data were supplied by Intelligems.