The news: Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) shoppers are willing to try new brands, an interest that’s driven by trust signals and price value.

• 78% of US consumers are open to trying a brand they don’t know during BFCM shopping, per Power Digital Marketing.
• 47% say strong reviews and ratings from others make them most willing to buy from an unfamiliar brand, followed by free shipping and deep discounts (33%) or it’s being sold by a trusted retailer or marketplace (28%). Only 18% cited repeat ad exposure.
• Another 47% would continue shopping with an unfamiliar brand after BFCM if product quality met or beat expectations, and 27% would do so if pricing remained competitive.

Digging in: With ad exposure ranking lowest among purchase drivers, there may be a mismatch between where many brands spend their holiday budgets and what actually attracts first-time buyers. Those who pour BFCM spending into awareness campaigns—without a parallel push on review volume and other builders of credibility and visibility—will leave conversions on the table.

The compressed BFCM shopping window introduces other challenges too. Unfamiliar brands have little time to establish credibility, requiring them to quickly make the case for why a product is worth buying. Small brands can gain from the growth of AI-mediated discovery, as company size and name recognition aren’t necessary to be surfaced in genAI answers.

Recommendations for brands: Prioritize collecting and displaying reviews ahead of BFCM to encourage user trust and potentially drive word-of-mouth communication and recommendations from friends and family.

Follow up during the post-purchase period to evaluate consumers’ satisfaction with fulfillment and quality to turn BFCM trials into repeat customers. Addressing user concerns when a product doesn’t live up to expectations can also help secure future brand equity.

With retailers and marketplaces positioned as trusted intermediaries with influence, brands that sell through Amazon, Target, Walmart, or similar platforms should lean on that association in product listings.