Black Friday is already on the homepage at 13 retailers in 10 markets, 26 days out

On the morning of 1 November, 26 days before Black Friday, we saw a Black Friday label on the homepage or deal page of 13 European retailers in 10 of the 11 markets we follow. That is 13 of the 44 retailer sites we read successfully, or three in ten. Spain was the only market where we saw none.

Eight retailers, or thirteen?

The headline count needs one adjustment before it is quoted. Six retailers joined the list overnight, from seven on 31 October, and five of them are Shein storefronts in Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden. We started reading Shein on 1 November, so we cannot say when its labels went up. Part of the jump is our coverage, not the market.

Set Shein aside and the list grew from seven retailers to eight. The newcomer is CDON in Sweden, which on 31 October was running a Christmas label and on 1 November had switched to Black Friday on gaming.

The core group is mostly electronics and general merchandise: MediaMarkt in Belgium and the Netherlands, Lidl in Germany, E.Leclerc in France, Euronics in Italy, Vobis in Poland and John Lewis in the United Kingdom. All seven carried the label on both days.

Shein says Black Friday in Lisbon, not in Paris

Shein's pattern is the more interesting detail. We read 10 of its European storefronts on 1 November. The five with a Black Friday label are Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden. The five without it are Germany, Spain, France, Italy and the United Kingdom. One morning is not a strategy, but it is a split worth checking again next week.

Black Friday has arrived as a label before it has arrived as a price.

A name, not yet a number

None of the 15 Black Friday promotions we recorded on 1 November stated a discount. They are banners and sale pages carrying the event's name, sometimes with free delivery attached, as at Euronics in Italy. The only deep figure tied to the season came from Poland, where Morele advertised up to 60% off computers and phones under a Black Week banner, alongside Vobis.

Black Friday is not alone on the homepage either. Four retailers already carry a Christmas label: Otto in Germany, E.Leclerc in France, and Aldi and John Lewis in the United Kingdom. Lidl in Germany runs Singles Day, 10 days away, next to its Black Friday label. For shoppers the calendar has stopped being a sequence. For retailers it is a stack of overlapping campaigns.

Germany jumped 32 points in a day, on five sites

Our Promo Heat index for Europe rose from 59 to 65 out of 100 between 31 October and 1 November. Germany moved most, from 49 to 81, with 83% of its readable retailers running a promotion. That rests on only five German sites we could read, so treat it as indicative. Italy rose from 62 to 71 and the United Kingdom from 61 to 67. Poland held at 80.

Is Spain really quiet?

Probably not. On 1 November we could read three Spanish retailers: AliExpress, Shein and Zalando. AliExpress advertised up to 80% off and Zalando a seasonal fashion sale, but neither used the Black Friday name. MediaMarkt, Carrefour, Decathlon, Leroy Merlin and Alcampo in Spain all blocked our visit, and we never get round a block. Spain's blank row describes the sites we could read, not the Spanish market.

The press suggests the opposite of quiet. Our news radar run of 27 October, covering articles published from 25 to 27 October, logged 97 stories about promotions starting early, 89 of them about Black Friday. Ireland (110 relevant stories), Portugal (79) and Spain (53) were the loudest markets. Those feeds also pick up stories about retail elsewhere, such as Walmart's deal events in the US and Shopee's 11.11 coupons in Brazil, so press volume is a signal of attention, not a count of local shops.

What to watch

• Singles Day, 11 November: whether more retailers follow Lidl in Germany and put 11.11 on the homepage, and whether Shein's labels spread to the five storefronts that showed none.
• Black Week, expected from 20 November: the first discount figures attached to Black Friday banners, and whether the eight non-Shein retailers start quoting numbers before then.
• Spain and Germany coverage: both readings will firm up as more retailers become readable. We will report each market's sample size alongside the score.

How we measured this

We read retailer homepages and deal pages each morning and record each live promotion with the event it names. This piece uses the readings of 31 October and 1 November 2026, the only two days of daily observation this week, plus the news radar run of 27 October. On 1 November we read 44 of the 178 retailers we list successfully (Belgium 3, Germany 5, Spain 3, France 4, Ireland 1, Italy 6, the Netherlands 3, Poland 7, Portugal 1, Sweden 8, the United Kingdom 3); 45 blocked us, 15 loaded with nothing to record, 11 of them Temu, and the rest were skipped or failed. Counting the 15 empty sites in the base, the Black Friday share would be 22% rather than three in ten.