Black Friday falls on November 27th, 2026, with Cyber Monday on the Monday just after it for tech buyers. It’s always around a month before Christmas, making it a popular time to make large purchases for presents, at least for those who are organized enough.
Back Market is the largest online marketplace that is dedicated entirely to refurbished electronics. So for tech buyers, many are checking sites like Back Market and Amazon in November. Across the full November–December holiday season, total US retail spending is expected to reach around $1 trillion.
Key Takeaways
- Black Friday 2026 falls on November 27th, with Cyber Monday the following Monday, marking a peak shopping season.
- Back Market is a leading marketplace for refurbished electronics and offers competitive pricing during Black Friday sales.
- Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2025 set high benchmarks, generating $11 billion and $14 billion in sales, respectively.
- Consumers benefit from online comparisons and mobile shopping, making refurbished products more accessible than ever.
- Buying refurbished phones helps reduce waste, but many still upgrade frequently, impacting both wallets and the environment.
Table of contents
A week named for a word nobody agrees on
Neither name in “Black Friday, Cyber Monday” means what most shoppers assume. Black Friday did not start as a reference to negative profit margins. It’s understandable, because of references like Black Monday in reference to the 1987 stock market crash which lost almost two trillion.
it’s actually to do with the gridlock traffic and chaos in 1960s Philadelphia on the day after Thanksgiving. They tried a rebrand, but nothing stuck. The same chaos can often be seen online to this day, with customers fighting over the last discounted TV in places like Walmart.
Thankfully, in 2026, most Black Friday “chaos” is done online, where tech buyers not only avoid long queues and fighting, but they can actually hop between websites to compare prices. In fact, entire Chrome Extensions are built around tracking historical prices to catch out the deceiving dud deals that Amazon often partakes in.
How big 2025 actually got for tech buyers
Last year is the major benchmark for what 2026 will need to beat. Black Friday 2025 was huge, generating over $11 billion in just US online sales alone – this is up over 9% from the previous year. Cyber Monday hit a record too with $14 billion in sales, making the Monday actually bigger than Friday for spending. This would be a surprise if not for the fact that, increasingly, the entire weekend is electronic-focused. TVs, smartphones, speakers, you name it…
In fact, Adobe reported that 57.5% of Cyber Monday’s online sales were made through mobile devices. For buyers tracking Black Friday 2026 deals specifically, that mobile share is important since most of the competition for stock and pricing is now happening on a phone screen, not a desktop. So unless your phone is broken, upgrading would ideally be timed for Black Friday. Though, of course, not upgrading at all is the biggest saver…
Where to buy without the guesswork
Back Market’s own Black Friday page often has aggressive pricing, so it’s a good place to have bookmarked for that weekend. Back Market is not used but refurbished – it’s a distinction that is important, and not for the reason you’re thinking of. A refurbished phone has been professionally cleaned, tested and inspected before being resold, whereas used phones are typically sold directly by individuals without going through the same professional inspection process. This also matters on Black Friday, as refurbished phones can be included in retailer promotions and discounts, while used phones sold by individuals are much less likely to be part of organized sales.
Back Market has become the go-to option around the world for refurbished phones. Its scale (15+ million customers) has helped greatly, because they’ve refined their pipeline process of gathering, fixing, testing, and selling phones to tech buyers in an efficient, low-cost but reliable way. It’s talked about in the news because it’s great for the environment (reduces landfill and CO2), but actually, consumers mostly just care about the fact that, despite the “second-hand prices”, they’re assured the battery life still holds up.
What deals to actually expect
Electronics. Electronics are by far the most compelling category of product for deals, and it’s where margins do get slashed. Buy Now, Pay Later has also grown in popularity, helping fund a lot of this spending. But, it’s important to know where the value is.
Google’s Pixel 11 launched with the Tensor G6 (Google’s own VP of Hardware confirmed it uses TSMC’s 3nm process rather than the 2nm node). These details are worth considering when judging whether a new phone deal is genuinely current silicon.
On the laptop side, Intel’s 15th-generation chips have around 5% to 15% more performance than the 14th generation. Though, with more form factors than ever, this is increasingly important to your decision – you want it to be 360-degree (tablet mode), dual-screen, a gaming laptop, and so on.
Back Market hasn’t only got refurbished iPhones and Samsung’s, but MacBooks and iPads too, with warranty and guaranteed quality. Given that laptops are more expensive than phones, this might be even more reason to shop refurbished. Deals will be across the board, but must be judged on a product by product basis. So, the earlier you get to know the non-seasonal price, the better.
The number that complicates the circular-economy pitch for tech buyers
In the US, smartphones are replaced, on average, every 2.5 to 3 years. Buying refurbished doesn’t, in theory, reduce this, seeing as the lifespan and software update longevity promises far exceed this. Instead, it’s driven by consumers simply wanting to upgrade, which is not good for your wallet or the environment.
Buying refurbished doesn’t necessarily alter this behavior, because it’s possible to buy the latest flagship phone refurbished, even if it was released only six months ago. But, it’s still buying a phone that already exists, rather than one that is right out of the factory.
