StoreForce Data Shows Black Friday Specialty Retail Sales Up 10% Despite Traffic Decline
December 2, 2025
Higher-value transactions, not more shoppers, drove performance across North American specialty retail.
Toronto, December 2nd, 2025 – StoreForce, the leader in workforce management and performance optimization for specialty retail, has released new aggregated data from Black Friday weekend showing that sales rose even as store traffic declined.
Over the Black Friday weekend across North America, specialty retailers using StoreForce, saw sales rise 10 percent year over year, even though traffic declined 1.9 percent. Retailers saw higher-value baskets and a higher price per item, which drove the lift despite fewer shoppers in stores.
“Black Friday showed specialty retailers can deliver value to their customers without discounting. The retailers who staffed their highest-value hours with intention – and executed on the instore experience – were the ones who saw the strongest jumps in conversion and visit value” said Bliss Gordon, VP Client Success at StoreForce
Key findings from the 2025 Specialty Retail Black Friday Report
StoreForce’s aggregated data highlights several notable shifts in shopper behaviour and store execution:
– Sales up, traffic down: Overall in-store sales for Black Friday weekend were up 10 percent, despite a 1.9 percent decline in traffic compared to 2024.
– Shoppers traded up, not out: The average price per item increased by 11.6% year over year, contributing to higher basket values even with softer traffic.
– Apparel and footwear led growth: Footwear and apparel were the strongest-performing verticals, delivering the highest year-over-year gains among specialty retail categories in the dataset.
– Labor used as a growth lever: Retailers that invested in additional labor during high-value hours saw stronger gains in conversion and visit value than those that kept labor flat, reinforcing labor’s role as a revenue driver rather than a fixed cost.
The report also contrasts performance over the three-day weekend, explores how operators reacted in-day using real-time data, and examines how changes in basket composition are shaping the rest of the holiday season.
Why it matters
The findings suggest that for specialty retail, conversion excellence now matters more than raw footfall. Shoppers arrived with clear intent and higher price tolerance but were more selective about what they bought. Retailers that aligned their strongest associates to peak hours – and had live visibility into conversion and visit value – were better positioned to capture that spend.
About the report
The 2025 Specialty Retail Black Friday Report is based on aggregated, anonymized in-store performance data from StoreForce specialty retail clients across North America. The full report includes:
– Detailed weekend KPIs across sales, traffic, conversion, visit value, average transaction value and average price per item
– Breakouts by day (Friday, Saturday, Sunday)
– Vertical-level performance highlights
– A Black Friday “scorecard” framework for operators to benchmark their own results
The complete report is available to retailers and media by request.
About StoreForce
StoreForce helps specialty retailers increase profitability by turning foot traffic into results. Purpose-built for store operations, StoreForce combines labor scheduling, real-time KPIs, task management, and performance tools into one solution, giving Retailers everything they need to maximize the value of every in-store visit. From increased conversion rates to consistent in-store execution, StoreForce enables retailers to operate smarter, faster, and with greater impact.
Media and report access
To request the full 2025 Specialty Retail Black Friday Report or speak with a StoreForce spokesperson about the findings, please contact:
Susan McGregor
Director of Marketing, StoreForce