The Calm Before the Clickstorm: Why October is Retail’s New Black Friday

October used to be the quiet before the chaos, the month where retailers finalized promotions, smoothed supply chains, and crossed fingers. Not anymore. The game has shifted. Holiday 2025 is already underway, and the brands that still treat October as a prep month are about to lose share before the season gets into full swing.

Today’s consumers are shopping smarter, earlier, and with sharper expectations. Our research shows that 37 percent of holiday purchases are now made before Thanksgiving not because shoppers are overachievers, but because they’ve learned to outsmart inflation, shipping delays, and sellouts. The “holiday window” has become a prediction game, and retailers that can see intent early will own the next eight weeks.

This is the new Black Friday.

The 50%-Off Fatigue is Real

I’ve been asked recently what my thoughts are surrounding deep promotional offers early in the season. My response is be wary. While offers drive volume now, in my years of retail, these markdowns erode three things in the long term: 

• Urgency: If you start early, you normalize the deal for the balance of the season.
• Perceived value: Your “worth” becomes your markdown. Markdowns are a slippery slope for brand DNA. 
• Storytelling power: You’ve led with transaction, not connection with your buyer. Emotion is critical now.

Promotional chaos has arrived too early, and shoppers are tuning it out. “50% off” used to mean excitement. Now it signals desperation. When every inbox, feed and screen screams a markdown, the message becomes white noise and the emotional value of the brand evaporates.

Consumers aren’t buying price; they’re buying proof. Proof that a brand understands their needs, remembers their preferences, and values their time. Retailers that focus solely on price are burning margin and attention, the two scarcest currencies of Q4.

The smart players are rethinking what “value” looks like. They’re pairing data-driven precision with emotional relevance: e.g., exclusives for loyalty members, personalized early access, or limited product drops that feel like privilege, not clearance. The new power move isn’t discounting more; it’s knowing more.

October is the Strategy Month … Not the Scramble Month

This is when the real orchestration begins. The retailers winning now are not reacting; they’re preempting. They’re using predictive intelligence to identify early intent signals, building personalized journeys before the shopping surge hits.

At Zeta, we see this every day: brands using identity, intelligence and activation in one stack are already optimizing for customers who haven’t even started browsing yet. They’re not just launching campaigns, they’re choreographing anticipation.

Because in 2025, anticipation is the new acquisition.

Brand Equity is the Silent KPI of the Season

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: if all you sell is price, you have no story left to tell.

If you want to win the next decade of retail, you need to build a brand consumers want to belong to, one that feels familiar, intentional and emotionally intelligent.

The noise of the season will only get louder. The question is whether your message cuts through it or gets buried under it.

The smartest retailers will use October to balance both sides of the equation:

• Data precision to target the right customers early.
• Brand storytelling to keep those customers coming back later.

The future of retail won’t be won by the loudest brands. It will be won by the smartest.

Final Thought

As we move deeper into Q4, the conversation must evolve from promotion to precision. From discounts to discipline. October isn't the warm-up. It’s the main event. The retailers that understand that will already be ahead, long before the rest even start counting clicks.

Melissa Tatoris is vice president, retail at Zeta Global, the AI marketing cloud.