Shoppers holding out for Black Friday: how to make your deals findable

Shoppers are waiting, and watching prices

Half of shoppers searching for Black Friday deals say they have delayed buying items in the hope of seeing them discounted, according to KPMG UK research reported by Retail Times. KPMG UK surveyed 3000 people across the UK about their plans for the promotional period leading up to Black Friday on the 27th. Retail Week also reported the research.

These are KPMG UK's numbers. They describe what people say they plan to do, and actual spending on the day may differ.

A shopper who holds back a purchase usually has a product in mind and a price they are waiting for. When the deals start, they search, compare and buy quickly. Their search might go through Google Shopping, a price comparison site or an AI assistant. A shop whose new price takes a day to appear in those places can lose that sale to a shop whose price appeared straight away.

Make the new price visible everywhere, fast

Speed matters most in three places:

• Shopping feeds. Google Merchant Center and comparison sites read your product feed. If the feed still shows the old price, your deal is hidden from the shoppers looking for it. Feeds can carry a sale price with start and end dates, so you can schedule the change ahead of time.
• Structured data on product pages. Search engines and AI tools read the price marked up on the page. Update it the moment the offer starts so it matches what the shopper sees at checkout.
• The same product page URLs. Run deals on the pages that already rank and already sit in shoppers' saved links and wish lists. A temporary deal page starts with no search history, and it can split attention away from the page that does.

Phone speed is the other half of the job. Sayu's study found that 70% of the 491,119 websites UK Chrome users visited on phones in September 2026 passed Google's Core Web Vitals. The rest were too slow to load, too jumpy or too slow to respond for at least a quarter of visits. That data comes from ordinary browsing in September, so a busy Black Friday page under heavy traffic may perform worse. For background on how much UK shopping now happens online, see Sayu's study on online's share of UK retail.

Honest 'was' prices keep trust

Shoppers who have been watching a product for weeks know what it really cost. A 'was' price that the product never sold at will look false to them straight away, and they may not come back. Price tracking tools and browser extensions make an inflated reference price easy to spot. Show a 'was' price only when the product genuinely sold at that price, and keep a record of it.

What this means for UK businesses

• Plan price changes in your product feed and on-page structured data before the deals start, so they switch over on time.
• Keep offers on your existing product page URLs.
• Test your key product and checkout pages on a phone, using a mobile connection.
• Use only genuine 'was' prices that you can back up.
• Check what Google Shopping and comparison sites show once your deals are live.

Analysis compiled by Sayu (sayu.co.uk), drawing on KPMG UK research as reported by Retail Times and Retail Week.