See what your category did, and what to do next.

You've seen what 21 performance running brands did last Black Friday. This is what you do with it.

The shorter companion to the Performance Running Black Friday Benchmark: the seven decisions that mattered most in Holiday 2025, what's already changing in 2026, and the move to make on each one. Every play pairs last year's benchmark data with live signals from ShopVision tracking this year, so you're planning against the market as it is now, not as it was.

The seven plays.

01: Move early, and give members the head start. 16 of 21 brands launched early last year, and one major brand already has Black Friday preview pages live this September.

02: Speak "up to", not sitewide. Only 4 of 21 framed Black Friday as sitewide, every one with exclusions. See how headline numbers and effective depth diverge.

03: Keep new shoes at full price, discount last year's models. This year's generation launches have already set the Black Friday markdown list, and one brand just broke its own protection rule.

04: Give members a better deal, not just an earlier one. Only four brands rewarded loyalty with exclusive offers in 2025. That white space is still mostly open, and the programs moved this year.

05: Send volume is a choice. Creative supply is the constraint. Two brands looked identical on a volume chart and completely different in the inbox, and the 2026 spread is widening fast.

06: Decide your December before November. The giants never stopped discounting and the indies went quiet. See which side of the split you should plan for.

07: Post-Christmas restraint is the norm here. Only 7 of 21 brands ran a year-end sale, and the tail of last season shows why the ones that did kept going into Q1.