---
title: "Black Friday customer service statistics: what shoppers ask, and when"
slug: "black-friday-customer-service-statistics"
url: "https://chatty.net/blog/black-friday-customer-service-statistics/"
kind: "post"
author: "Drake Q."
author_url: "https://chatty.net/author/drake/"
published_at: "2026-09-22T09:00:00+07:00"
updated_at: "2026-09-22T09:00:00+07:00"
description: "What shoppers ask customer service during Black Friday week, December and after the holiday, with the share of messages for each subject, the method, and the seven limits."
categories: ["BFCM Blog"]
tags: ["bfcm", "Customer service", "customer experience"]
reading_time: 8
feature_image: "https://cdn.chatty.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/thumbnail-black-friday-customer-service-statistics.webp"
---

# Black Friday customer service statistics: what shoppers ask, and when

Nine findings on what Shopify shoppers actually ask during Black Friday and the weeks around it, measured across a full peak season, with the method and the limits behind every number.

This post publishes the headline findings from [The State of Peak Season Customer Service 2026](https://chatty.net/bfcm/), a report on what shoppers asked during the 2025 peak season. Every figure below is stated with the period it covers and the population it describes, so it can be quoted without the full report. The method and the seven limits are at the bottom, and both matter more than any single number.

**What the data is:** shopper conversations across Shopify stores using Chatty, from 20 October 2025 to 15 January 2026, split into four phases. One set of figures, on running short of answers, uses a later and more stable window of 1 June to 14 September 2026. Published September 2026.

**Key Takeaways**

- **Peak season is four phases, not one spike**

  BFCM week ran 62% above the four weeks before it, then December held 45% above for three straight weeks, which is the longer strain.
- **What shoppers ask changes with the phase**

  Discounts peak in sale week, delivery peaks from 2 to 24 December, stock peaks after the holiday.
- **Your industry decides the order, not a shared checklist**

  Of seven industries, five got more discount questions in sale week and two got fewer, spanning fourteen times higher at toy stores to lower at electronics stores.
- **Three subjects run short of answers**

  Discounts, returns and delivery run short more often than sizing, because each depends on a rule the merchant has to write down first.
- **An unanswered list is mostly not a writing job**

  Of 99 unanswered messages read by hand, only 33 were real questions with nothing prepared, and 51 needed no answer at all.

## Finding 1: BFCM week carried 62% more messages per day than the four weeks before it

Across all stores using Chatty, the week of 24 November to 1 December 2025 averaged 62% more messages per day than the four weeks before the sale, 20 October to 16 November 2025.

That is a platform-level figure, and no single store grows the way a platform does. Measured store by store, among stores with at least one message a day in the baseline phase, the store in the middle of the range grew 31%, the quietest quarter of stores actually saw 0.73x their usual volume, and the busiest quarter saw 2.13x or more.

For capacity planning, the median is the wrong number to plan against. More than a quarter of stores took double their usual volume or more, so double is the load to test against, not the average.

![BFCM week growth with all stores counted together at 1.62x, against individual stores where the quietest quarter reached 0.73x, the store in the middle 1.31x, and the busiest quarter 2.13x or more](https://cdn.chatty.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/bfcm-week-growth-platform-versus-individual-stores.webp)

## Finding 2: December ran 45% above normal for three straight weeks

From 2 to 24 December 2025, message volume ran 45% above the four weeks before the sale, and it held there for 23 consecutive days. That is the longest sustained stretch of the season. BFCM week is busier per day; December is longer, and it arrives when seasonal staff have already been through the sale.

After the holiday, from 26 December 2025 to 15 January 2026, volume fell back to roughly an ordinary week, 1.06x the baseline. The phase is quiet in volume and still carries its own questions, which is why it is the phase most often left out of planning.

![Messages per day across the 2025 peak season in four phases, with the four weeks before the sale set to 1.00, BFCM week at 1.62, early December at 1.45, and after the holiday at 1.06](https://cdn.chatty.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/bfcm-2025-peak-season-four-phases-message-volume.webp)

## Finding 3: Discount questions rose 40% in share during sale week

The share of messages mentioning a discount or a code rose from 1.88% in the four weeks before the sale to 2.64% during BFCM week, a rise of 40% in share. Gift questions rose almost 40% as well.

Two subjects moved the other way. Delivery and returns both fell during sale week, because the orders had only just been placed. Their turn came later.

## Finding 4: In sale week, discount questions ran from fourteen times higher to slightly lower across seven industries

Industry moves this number more than any other variable measured. Across the seven industries large enough to report, five carried a larger share of discount questions during BFCM week than in the four weeks before it, and two carried a smaller one.

![Share of messages mentioning a discount in seven industries, four weeks before the sale against BFCM week, rising from 0.88% to 12.10% at toy and game stores and falling from 1.22% to 0.75% at electronics stores](https://cdn.chatty.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/discount-questions-by-industry-sale-week-versus-before.webp)

The two ends are the ones worth naming. Toy and game stores went from 0.88% to 12.10%, close to fourteen times, so at a toy store the stacking rules are the first job. Electronics went the other way, from 1.22% to 0.75%, so there the effort belongs on specifications and compatibility instead. Everything between those two ends moved only a little. Four industries rose modestly, sporting goods 2.89% to 3.49%, home and garden 2.38% to 3.46%, arts and entertainment 1.63% to 3.45%, and health and beauty 2.11% to 2.89%. Apparel and accessories slipped, 1.79% to 1.67%. Toys is the outlier, not the pattern.

The same split shows up in which subject dominates. During sale week, size questions take the largest share at apparel and sporting goods stores, 4.08% and 3.42%. At toy, arts and food stores it is delivery instead, running from 5.52% to 6.99%. Electronics is the least affected by the sale season across every subject measured.

This is an industry-level result and sample size by industry is not reported. Industry comes from an automated classification, and only industries with more than 5,000 messages in each of the two phases were included. The practical reading: one BFCM checklist handed to every store will put some of them to work on the wrong subject first.

## Finding 5: Delivery is the most asked subject in every phase, and peaks before the holiday

Of the six subjects tracked by keyword, delivery had the highest share of messages in every phase of the season, including sale week. It reached its season high of 5.27% of all messages between 2 and 24 December 2025, and its season low of 3.98% after the holiday.

Gift questions also peaked in that same pre-holiday window, at 0.84%, nearly double their ordinary level.

![Delivery holds the highest share of messages in all four phases of the 2025 peak season, peaking at 5.27% between 2 and 24 December and falling to 3.98% after the holiday](https://cdn.chatty.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/delivery-share-of-messages-across-four-bfcm-phases.webp)

## Finding 6: Stock questions reach their highest share after the holiday

Between 26 December 2025 and 15 January 2026, the share of messages mentioning stock reached 2.24%, the highest of the season, while total volume had already fallen back to an ordinary level. Shoppers in this phase ask which sizes are left, when stock returns, how an exchange works, and how a gift without a receipt is handled.

![Across the four phases, messages per day fall back to 1.06x of the baseline after the holiday while the share of messages mentioning stock climbs to its season high of 2.24%](https://cdn.chatty.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/post-holiday-volume-falls-while-stock-questions-peak.webp)

## Finding 7: Discounts, returns and delivery are the subjects stores run short of answers on

Measured over 1 June to 14 September 2026, a window where the measurement is stable, some subjects far more often found no matching content in the store's own knowledge. Using size questions as the reference at 1.0, because stores nearly always have an answer ready for those:

- Discounts and codes run short **1.7 times** as often as size questions.
- Returns run short **1.6 times** as often.
- Delivery runs short **1.4 times** as often.
- Stock runs short **1.1 times** as often.

The three at the top have something in common. Each depends on the rules of one sale or the state of one order, so the answer is not in a product description. It exists only if the merchant has written it down. Size and stock are easier because they are tied to products, and product data already sits in the store.

These three also land at three different times. Discounts pile up in sale week, delivery piles up in December, and returns follow no season at all: they run short all year. Peak season does not create these gaps. It exposes them at the same time.

## Finding 8: Most unanswered messages are not a content problem

A random sample of 99 shopping messages where the assistant matched no content was read by hand, by one reviewer. Only 33 of them were real product questions with nothing prepared. Another 15 needed an action rather than a page, such as a button click or a stock request. The remaining 51 needed no answer at all: thank-yous, yes or no replies, and short follow-ups, plus off-topic or mislabelled messages.

The list of messages an assistant could not answer is therefore not the list of content a store is missing. Half of it needs nothing. Sorting it first changes what the fix actually is.

![A grid of 99 hand-read messages that matched no content, split into 33 real product questions with nothing prepared, 15 needing an action rather than a page, and 51 needing no answer at all](https://cdn.chatty.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/99-unanswered-messages-read-by-hand-split.webp)

## Finding 9: Only 13.5% of messages repeat a question word for word

At stores with at least 200 messages, 13.5% of messages were a word-for-word repeat of a message that store had already received. The other 86.5% were worded differently, and many of them were familiar questions asked a new way. One stacking rule can be asked in dozens of ways in a single day, which is why the unit worth preparing is one answer per intent rather than one reply per wording.

## Method

Each part of the report is measured its own way. Source: Chatty platform data.

- **Seasonal volume:** messages per day across all stores using Chatty, 20 October 2025 to 15 January 2026, split into four phases.
- **Growth per store:** stores with at least one message a day in the four weeks before the sale, comparing BFCM week against that same phase.
- **Subjects by phase:** share of messages containing each subject's keywords, used to compare phases against each other.
- **Running short of answers:** window of 1 June to 14 September 2026, where the measurement is stable. Compared across subjects, with size as the reference.
- **Industry:** automated industry classification. Only industries with more than 5,000 messages in each of the two phases are shown.
- **Sample read:** 99 shopping messages with no matching content, sampled at random, one reviewer.

## Seven limits to know before using these numbers

1. **Not representative of Shopify.** Every store in the data uses Chatty, and large stores dominate the totals.
2. **Keyword counting undercounts.** Messages arrive in many languages, so true shares are higher than shown. Use the figures to compare phases, not as absolute rates.
3. **Running short of answers compares subjects only,** within one measurement window, never months against each other.
4. **One season only.** There is no second peak to compare against.
5. **Subject labels are machine-assigned.** Subject shares are indicative rather than exact.
6. **Counted by message.** A shopper who sends five messages counts five times, so the largest stores weigh most in every share.
7. **No revenue link.** No message in this data is connected to an order value.

One more thing this data is not: a measurement of BFCM 2026, which has not happened yet. It describes the 2025 peak season, and it is useful only to the extent that the next one resembles the last one.

## How to cite this

Chatty, *The State of Peak Season Customer Service 2026: what shoppers ask in peak season, and when*, September 2026. Chatty platform data, Shopify stores using Chatty, 20 October 2025 to 15 January 2026. Available at chatty.net/bfcm.

The full 27-page report adds the phase-by-phase chapters, a six-line readiness scorecard for grading your own store, and a dated calendar from October to mid-January. You can [get it here](https://chatty.net/bfcm/).

## Frequently asked questions

### How much does customer service volume rise during BFCM week?

Across all Shopify stores using Chatty, BFCM week (24 November to 1 December 2025) carried 62% more messages per day than the four weeks before the sale (20 October to 16 November 2025). One store does not grow like the platform: the store in the middle of the range grew 31%, while more than a quarter of stores took double their usual volume or more.

### Does customer service volume drop after Black Friday?

No. In the 2025 peak season, the three weeks from 2 to 24 December ran 45% above the four weeks before the sale, making it the longest sustained stretch of the season rather than the loudest. Volume returned to roughly an ordinary week (1.06x) between 26 December and 15 January.

### What do shoppers ask about most during BFCM?

Delivery. Across the four phases measured, delivery was the most mentioned of the six tracked subjects in every phase, including sale week, and it reached its season high of 5.27% of messages between 2 and 24 December. Discount questions rose fastest, from 1.88% to 2.64% of messages in BFCM week, a 40% rise in share.

### Is this data representative of all Shopify stores?

No. Every store in this data uses Chatty, and the largest stores dominate the totals because shares are counted by message rather than by store. Read it as a description of one platform's stores in one season, not as a measurement of Shopify as a whole, and not as a forecast of BFCM 2026.