Maximizing Profitability This BFCM

Black Friday Cyber Monday used to be about growth at all costs. Not anymore.

In 2025, the smartest DTC brands are shifting their focus from pure revenue growth to proitable growth. With customer acquisition costs climbing and marketing budgets stretched thin, the real competitive advantage lies in what happens after a customer lands on your site.

I recently joined Richard Keane, Enterprise GTM at Wayflyer, and Avi Moskowitz, CEO, Co-Founder at PrettyDamnQuick for a conversation about how brands can maximize profitability this holiday season. What emerged was a clear playbook for protecting margins while still driving meaningful revenue growth.

The shift: From traffic to conversion efficiency

Half the battle is getting customers to your site. Once they arrive, reducing friction and maximizing every interaction becomes critical. 

In today's world, with content being so bite-sized, attention spans are shorter for most consumers. So once you have them, keeping their attention and getting them ready to convert is extremely important. The question becomes: why should they buy from your DTC site instead of Amazon or other channels?

3 quick wins to boost profitability

1. Accelerated payment options

The fastest way to boost conversion rates is enabling frictionless payment methods. Implementation takes hours, not weeks, and the impact is immediate. What to enable:

• Shop Pay
• Apple Pay
• Buy now, pay later options (Affirm, Afterpay, Klarna)

The results: We've seen double-digit conversion increases just by adding these payment methods directly to stores. This is especially critical during Black Friday when both brands and consumers are cash-strapped. There are pretty easy plug-in options with Shopify, so turning on these settings can make a super quick difference.

2. Free shipping progress bars

A simple shipping progress bar encourages customers to add one or two lower-priced items to qualify for free shipping. The beauty of this tactic is that those incremental items often carry higher margins than your hero products.

But here's the catch: most brands set their free shipping thresholds by looking at competitors' sites, according to Abby from Pretty Darn Quick. No one's actually testing to find the optimal number. This Black Friday is the time to get that right, because the difference between a profitable and unprofitable checkout often comes down to that threshold.

I've seen quite a bit of opportunity with free shipping progress bars. Adding things like these that encourage your customer to add one or two extra products for a smaller price point increases your AOV at a larger scale, and it encourages another reward for that customer, whether it's free shipping or faster shipping.

3. Strategic product bundling

Move beyond obvious bundles like "shampoo plus conditioner." Consider value-added services that don't increase fulfillment costs.

Example: I worked with a jewelry brand that saw success by offering extended warranty upsells at the point of purchase. An extra two-year warranty is a higher margin addition that provides peace of mind without adding another physical product to ship.

Key insight: Not every upsell needs to be another product. Consider:

• Extended warranties
• Digital products
• Premium packaging
• Expedited support services

These boost AOV while maintaining or improving margins since they don't increase shipping costs or inventory complexity.

The idea of an upsell doesn't always have to be another product because first-time customers might not be ready to try other products at this stage. But something like an extended warranty provides peace of mind value that you're contributing without being as on the nose as "you bought a watch, do you want a carrying case or cleaning kit?"

Understanding the true cost of shipping

Shipping typically represents 15 to 30% of overall costs, and it's virtually impossible for brands to predict expenses in advance due to surcharges and overages during the holiday season. Those bills arrive at the end of BFCM, often with sticker shock attached.

Abby offers a critical insight about upsells that many brands miss: they can be a double-edged sword. Brands celebrate the upsell, then realize: it requires two boxes to ship, the second item wasn't factored into shipping costs, and the upsell increased revenue but eroded margin.

Smart strategies to mitigate shipping costs:

1. Use regional carriers that offer more predictable pricing without surcharges
2. Prioritize orders near your inventory locations for faster, cheaper delivery
3. Segment customers by proximity to inventory. You can make aggressive delivery promises while using regular ground shipping
4. Pre-kit bundles that ship in a single box to control costs

Optimizing for AOV and margin simultaneously

Site optimization isn't just about conversion rates anymore. It's about maximizing the value of every transaction while protecting profitability.

Build your own bundles

I've seen a ton of success lately with bundles and build your own bundle type offerings. They work really well because pre-kitted bundles that ship in a single box accomplish two goals: 1.) Remove decision fatigue for customers and 2.) Control your shipping costs.

If products naturally complement each other and ship well together, bundle them. You can pre-kit these as bundles so there are no shipping concerns, you already have these in a single box. Or you can bundle items that pair and ship well together.

Strategic upsells

Critical question to ask: Does this upsell fit in the box the customer is already receiving? An upsell that requires a second box might increase revenue but erode margin. Smart upsells enhance AOV without proportionally increasing fulfillment costs.

Social proof at critical moments

I've seen quite a bit of success on product pages by adding social proof. There's been a loss of brand over the last handful of years on these sites, and it creates a mold where it's confusing for a customer: why would I purchase on the DTC store if I can just do it on Amazon and get four other products at the same time and ship it to my house in two days for free?

What to add:

• User-generated content showing products in use
• Authentic reviews from actual customers
• Trust badges and security indicators
• Community-driven content

Real impact: Recent testing showed one brand increased revenue by over a million dollars just by displaying relevant, positive reviews in checkout.

I think you need to provide that value for somebody once they're on your site. They're going to get more social proof. They're going to see users using the products with UGC on the product pages. They're going to hear reviews from customers that aren't there for just paid reviews—they're there because they're actually purchasing these products and they're a consistent consumer. There's that feeling of community that wraps around that brand, and that's been missing a little bit.

The Black Friday gift-giving factor

Here's a consideration many brands miss: a significant portion of Black Friday traffic isn't your core customer. There's substantial gifting happening during this timeframe, which means you're serving two distinct audiences simultaneously.

A lot of these customers coming here during BFCM are not only first-time customers, but they might not even be the true customer. There's a lot of gifting that happens during this time frame. So speaking only in the language to a consumer that knows and understands your brand is actually missing probably half the mark to begin with.

Brand loyalists:

• Care about your story, values, and community
• Interested in product details and sustainability
• Looking for the full brand experience

Gift buyers:

• Prioritize delivery speed and reliability
• Need ease of purchase
• Want clear product benefits explained simply
• Less interested in brand backstory

That customer purchasing for somebody might not care as much about the brand's backstory. Their sole focus might actually just be delivery time or frequency. Making sure there's personalization and testing to speak to different segments of customers during this time period is super important to maximize the window of opportunity for each of them.

Capital deployment beyond marketing

While marketing spend dominates most BFCM budgets, Richard from Wayflyer points out that the smartest operators are shifting their approach.

The new allocation Strategy:

• 60-70% toward acquisition (paid ads, influencer campaigns, partnerships)
• 30-40% toward retention drivers (loyalty programs, subscriptions, post-purchase upsells, faster shipping)

As one brand put it: they're acquiring customers this Black Friday for next Black Friday. The long-term thinking pays off because customer lifetime value becomes the real metric that matters, not just the immediate ROAS.

Year-round capital strategy:

Earlier in the year, brands can use capital strategically to:

• Negotiate better terms with suppliers through larger purchase orders
• Secure better carrier contracts through bulk commitments
• Invest in site optimization and CRO improvements
• Fund subscription and loyalty program builds

These operational improvements compound over time and improve unit economics permanently.

Testing: Your secret weapon

Testing usually pays for itself fairly quickly. There's an upfront cost to AB testing, but you start seeing those conversion gains and AOV increases pretty quickly. You'll realize that paying a couple hundred dollars a month for an AB testing app or solution pays for itself fast, and it's worth it for the long haul.

The upfront cost of AB testing tools is minimal compared to the revenue impact.

What to test right now:

• Free shipping thresholds (most brands copy competitors rather than testing what actually works)
• Checkout flow (one-page versus multi-page)
• Upsell positioning and messaging
• Bundle configurations
• Trust badge placement and copy

Why Black Friday is perfect for testing:

• Concentrated traffic over several days provides quick data
• High volume allows you to reach statistical significance faster
• Real-time application of learnings during the event itself
• BFCM behavior differs from baseline, so ongoing testing matters

I'm surprised every day by some of the results you get when you test, and that's why you test. We've tested one-page versus three-page checkouts and you'd think sometimes a one-page checkout converts better. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. That's ultimately why you test.

The bottom line

The brands that win this Black Friday won't necessarily be those who spend the most on advertising. They'll be the ones who've optimized every step of the customer journey to maximize profitability per transaction.

The 2025 playbook for profitable growth:

• Understand your unit economics at the SKU level
• Test relentlessly to find what actually works for your customers
• Treat site optimization with the same rigor you apply to media buying
• Focus on conversion efficiency, strategic AOV growth, and margin protection

Maximize the moment once you have customers on your site. Not only drive urgency around purchase, but ease the peace of mind of a consumer that this is the right product for them, this is where they want to purchase it, and they're ready at this stage to move forward with it.

The opportunity is clear: the traffic you're already paying for becomes exponentially more valuable when every visitor has a higher probability of converting at a higher value with better unit economics.

Start testing now. The brands that master this approach will build durable competitive advantages that extend well beyond this holiday season.