Issue 004 — Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the Pressure Points Beneath the Records

18 December 2025

This week’s round-up looks back at what Black Friday and Cyber Monday actually revealed for Shopify merchants. From record-breaking sales and peak checkout velocity, to a brief but telling outage and what investors took away from it, the data paints a clear picture of where Shopify won and where the pressure showed.

📝 Articles and deep dives

Shopify merchants generate $14.6B during Black Friday and Cyber Monday - Shopify reported record-breaking BFCM results, with $14.6 billion in global sales across 81+ million customers, up 27 percent year on year.

Shopify Blog

Shopify’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales surged 27 percent despite brief outage - Retail Brew on Shopify’s strong BFCM performance, including the short Cyber Monday admin outage and what it meant during peak trading.

Retail Brew

Shopify merchants saw peak sales per minute during Cyber Monday - Investor-facing breakdown of peak sales velocity and global participation across the platform.

Shopify Investor Relations

The true story of BFCM 2025 - A broader look at this year’s BFCM statistics and what merchants can realistically take away from them.

Retention Edge

Shopify BFCM 2025: Proven BFCM strategies by top brands - How high-performing Shopify stores prepared for BFCM 2025, with tactics, apps, and retention strategies.

IT Geeks

Shopify stock update - Investors weigh insider trading headlines, institutional filings, and how much growth is already priced in heading into 2026.

TechStock²

🛠️ Tools & Apps

Temu unveils app for Shopify sellers - Official integration enabling Shopify merchants to list and manage goods on Temu directly from the Shopify admin.

Retail Gazette

4 developer highlights from Shopify’s Winter ’25 Editions - New Picker API, custom ID support for metafields, and other developer-focused updates.

gadget.dev

Gift Wrap Plus - Adds configurable gift wrap options at product level, with flexible pricing by wrap type.

Nulls.net

🎥 Videos & Podcasts

How to Make Retailers Chase Your Brand - Nima Jalali on building SALT & STONE into a $100M+ brand after creating the product he couldn’t find.

Shopify Masters Podcast

How This Entrepreneur Sets the Next Generation Up for Success - Indigenous entrepreneurs using commerce, culture, and community to drive local economic growth.

Shopify YouTube

💅 What's new in Shopify this week?

Dec 16: Switch between exploration methods in Analytics

Dec 12: Automated transfers for Shopify Balance payouts

Dec 11: Prevent accidental inventory overwrite in bulk editor

Dec 10: Sidekick fullscreen mode, start Sidekick conversations from Home, AI block generation for all Theme Store themes

Read the full changelog