The Truth About Black Friday for E-Commerce Brands | Marketers Roundtable

Is Black Friday even worth it anymore?

In this special roundtable edition of the Mastering Business Growth Podcast, Paul Fernandez brings together a panel of experienced marketers to ask the question e-commerce brands are secretly thinking: Does Black Friday still make sense — or is it destroying margins, brand value, and customer quality?

This isn’t a fluffy recap.
It’s an unfiltered conversation about what’s actually happening inside brands during peak season — the pressure to discount, the race to the bottom, and why so many founders come out of Q4 exhausted, disappointed, or in the red.

In this discussion, we cover:
Why Black Friday attracts low-LTV customers
How discounting erodes margins and brand trust
Why many brands copy Gymshark without the economics to sustain it
The operational strain brands don’t see coming
Smarter, more profitable alternatives to blanket discounting
What top-performing brands are doing differently this year

Whether you love Black Friday or dread it, this episode gives you a deeper understanding of what’s actually working — and what’s not — so you can make better decisions next year.

Connect with our guests:
Adam Pearce - Blend Commerce - https://blendcommerce.com/
Hannah Spicer - Hannah Spicer Consulting - https://www.hspicerconsulting.com/
Will Anderson - Growth Society - https://growthsociety.co.uk/

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Mastering Business Growth is the podcast for founders, marketers, and business leaders who want to think sharper, market smarter, and grow faster.

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👉 Innersound Media – helping businesses build trust, sales, and scale through high-quality branded podcasts.
👉 The Growth Guys – performance marketing for e-commerce brands that want profitable scale.