Opting Out of Black Friday: Where the Discount Eats Into Your Margin and Where It Pays Off

On October 26, Rosbalt published an article titled “Sellers Are Abandoning ‘Black Friday’: Why You Shouldn’t Expect Sales.” The publication’s existence and date are confirmed facts. Everything behind the headline, however, turned out to be unverified: the article itself could not be opened, the links found led through redirects, and no verified sources contained official announcements of Wildberries, Ozon, or Yandex Market sales for November–December 2026.

For a seller deciding the fate of a discount across 100 SKUs in November, this is no minor issue. When there are no reliable figures for the year’s biggest sale, you cannot base a discount on the headline of a media roundup. You can make the decision earlier, using your own data—if you establish the boundaries in advance.

What Is Confirmed and What Is Not

Level one: the fact of publication. Several major media outlets discussed the topic of sellers abandoning sales: 78.ru published a roundup on October 16 about the date of the main 2026 sale, T-Business Secrets published two articles on October 21 about preparations for “Black Friday,” and Rosbalt published its article on October 26. The articles could not be opened: the links lead through Google News redirects, and the direct URLs do not load.

One of these headlines—“It Will Be Harder Than Usual. What Businesses Face at Sales in 2026”—provides a convenient entry point: sellers already expect conditions this season to be tougher than usual. But it confirms only the wording of the headline, not any change in the marketplaces’ rules.

Level two: opinions from market participants. In the publications, the reasons for abandoning sales are reduced to margin, discount depth, overhead, and product availability. These are statements from sellers and editorial assessments. They can be described as the market’s opinion, but they cannot be presented as marketplace policy.

Level three: the data that is missing. The sale dates for November–December 2026 have not been confirmed in verified sources. The marketplaces have not provided public data on how discount depth affects a product’s position in search results. The connection between “deeper discount—higher position” remains sellers’ experience, not a confirmed dependency.

This does not make the topic irrelevant. It changes the decision at hand: not “What discount will the market offer?” but “What discount pays off on my product mix?”

What Will Happen When Official Dates Are Announced

Sale dates will appear in the marketplaces’ accounts and help centers, which is the first place you should look for them, rather than in media roundups. When an announcement is published, pay attention to three things: the announcement’s publication date and the promotion’s effective date are two different dates; the eligibility requirements shown in your account for each specific product; and any price requirements, if specified. A roundup summarizing an announcement is useful as a signal, but decisions for individual SKUs should be based on your account and your formula.

Price Leadership Is a Trade, Not a Gift

Price leadership during a sale is bought with margin. You give up part of your margin upfront—and gain the right to participate in the promotion and, according to sellers’ experience, additional impressions in search results. The trade does not make sense for every product.

For example, suppose you have a product with a purchase price of 900 ₽ and a margin of 220 ₽ after the marketplace commission, logistics, and storage. A competitor in the same category sells for 1,990 ₽, while your current price is 2,290 ₽. A 10% discount gives you a price of 2,061 ₽: you undercut the competitor while giving up 229 ₽ in margin on every sale—that is, all of it. If the additional impressions generated by this price do not recover at least some of what you gave up, the discount simply burns through the margin on your highest-margin product.

For a product with a margin of 700 ₽, the same discount still costs you 229 ₽, but as a percentage of the margin it amounts to less than one-third. This is where participation in a promotion generally pays off: according to sellers’ experience, the price generates additional impressions, and the margin can withstand the discount.

The calculation is conditional, but the order is always the same: first, the margin in rubles per unit; then, the margin as a percentage; and only then, the decision on discount depth. A discount that consumes the entire margin is not leadership—it is unprofitable leadership.

Withdrawing Before the Promotion Starts Is Cheaper Than Withdrawing Midway Through

Withdrawing from a promotion after it has been announced and the price has been promised to customers costs more than withdrawing in advance. This is process logic, not a confirmed figure: once you participate, you are working under conditions already fixed for the customer, and reverting to the previous price becomes a separate task with a cost of its own.

The practical takeaway: make SKU-level decisions before the promotion starts, not during its first days. At that point, you have the most important thing—freedom to choose. Once the prices, discounts, and promotion terms have been announced, your freedom is constrained by the limits you promised yourself.

How to Work Through Your SKUs in Order

1. Compile the current price and full cost price formula for each product: purchase price, marketplace commission, logistics, storage, and returns. Without the full formula, the minimum eligible price is a guess.
2. Calculate the margin in rubles and as a percentage of the price. You set the participation threshold yourself: for example, do not go below a 40% margin if you are not prepared to operate at a loss.
3. Review the price history of competitors and suppliers in this category. The current figure is less important than consistency: if a competitor’s price has dropped during two of the last three sales, your undiscounted “leader price” is unlikely to hold your position.
4. Determine the maximum discount depth for each individual product, rather than for the category as a whole. Within a single category, some products generate additional impressions that make the discount worthwhile, while for others it merely redistributes margin within your own product mix.
5. Divide your decisions into three lists: participate, participate with a limited discount depth, and decline to participate. The third list is a working result, not a failure.
6. Establish the boundaries and document them before the start date. A discount assigned “by eye” on the promotion’s first day ends precisely where your margin ends.

What to Do When You Do Not Have Enough Data

Some products have no clear price history: no competitor is visible, the price has changed three times in a month, or the supplier has not confirmed the new price list. Cutting prices blindly in these situations is the worst option: you give up margin without knowing exactly what you gain in return.

A sensible rule: if the source price is not confirmed, the automatic price adjustment does not apply—the product remains at its current price and moves into monitoring mode. This is how Pricerio works: competitor and supplier price monitoring, a history of price changes, and automatic pricing based on formulas; when data is insufficient or conflicting, the current price is retained and the product moves into monitoring mode. Your job here is not to configure the rule but to determine, for each product, which price value you agree to treat as confirmed.

Frequently asked seller questions

How to find the sale date. In your account and in the marketplace’s help center. Media reviews show that the announcement has been made, but the pricing decision is based on the data in your account.

Does the depth of the discount affect a product’s position in search results. No public marketplace data was available as of 10/26/2026. The connection between “a deeper discount—a higher position in search results” is based on sellers’ experience and cannot be considered a guarantee.

Whether to offer a discount. Compare the minimum eligible price with the expected return based on your impression data. If the return cannot be calculated, the discount is set blindly.

When to lock in the decision. Before the marketplace’s first announcement. Once the announcement is made, the price and terms have already been promised to the buyer, and your freedom to make changes is limited by the constraints you have set for yourself.

What to do today

Take the list of SKUs you are planning to include in the sale and, before the marketplace’s first announcement, fill in three columns for each one: minimum eligible price, maximum discount depth, and expected return based on impressions. If you do not have even one of the three answers for a particular product, deciding what to do with it is your main question for the next step.

Which product in your assortment is ready for a discount today, and which one will lose money on every unit sold? Run this calculation for your own products—it will immediately show you where market leadership pays off and where the price simply eats into your margin.