December 18, 2025
Black Friday shattered records with $11.8 billion in online sales. Now comes the hard part: surviving the rest of the holiday rush without your inventory strategy falling apart. We’re breaking down why spreadsheets are a liability, why your supplier list needs a backup plan, and why flexibility tops nearly every supply chain leader’s 2026 wish list.
Looking ahead, Morgan Stanley sees a trucking shake-up brewing as capacity tightens and rates inch upward. And finally, we head to New York City, where the comptroller’s latest report reveals the consequences of 2.5 million daily packages straining streets, workers, and neighborhoods already gasping for clean air. Let’s get started.
American shoppers dropped a staggering $11.8 billion online during Black Friday 2025 — and yes, that’s a record. For the fourth consecutive year, Black Friday crushed its previous high, marking the first time online sales cracked the $11 billion ceiling. Year-over-year growth hit 9.1%, cementing the day’s status as an e-commerce heavyweight.
Between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., consumers collectively spent $12.5 million every minute. Read that again. Mobile devices drove $6.5 billion of the total, accounting for 55.2% of all online purchases. Ten years ago, Black Friday e-commerce totaled just $3.54 billion. Today, sales have tripled, and smartphones have quietly become consumers’ most powerful shopping weapon.
Traffic from AI-driven sources surged 805% year over year as shoppers turned to generative tools to hunt deals on video games, electronics, and toys. Consumers who reached retailers through AI chat services were 38% more likely to complete a purchase than those coming from other channels, including social media. Buy now, pay later options also gained ground, driving $747.5 million in spending, or 6.3% of all digital sales, with 80.7% of those transactions occurring on mobile.
Those record-breaking Black Friday numbers are something else, but the real marathon starts now. Many SMBs rely on the holiday season for at least 50% of their annual revenue, and this year they're navigating tariff uncertainty, shipping delays, and ongoing supply chain disruption. Late deliveries have jumped more than 30% since January, and stockouts are becoming more common. So how do you cross the finish line?
Managing inventory with spreadsheets or bloated ERP systems is a recipe for missed sales and frustrated customers. Software built specifically for SMBs can plug into your existing workflow, wherever and however you sell. Connect your CRM, accounting tools, and sales channels into a single ecosystem. You’ll gain visibility into what’s moving, what’s sitting, and what needs reordering before it becomes a problem. Use historical data to forecast demand and stop guessing your way through December.
Deloitte’s 2025 Retail Holiday Buyer Survey found that most businesses worry their current suppliers won’t fulfill holiday orders amid ongoing geopolitical tensions. Several European countries recently halted U.S. shipments over unclear tariff policies, so this isn’t paranoia — it’s risk management. Build a database of trusted suppliers, both domestic and international, so you can pivot quickly when disruptions hit. Diversifying now beats scrambling later.
The holiday rush will end, but the supply chain mayhem won’t. West Monroe surveyed 250 manufacturing, retail, and distribution leaders and found that 2025 was pure survival mode. Most respondents spent the year reacting in real time to every tariff announcement and policy change, often within a single business week before reliable data was even available. The objective for 2026 is clear: Stop guessing and start building flexibility and resilience.
A quarter of supply chain leaders cited improved inventory management as their top priority for 2026, followed by faster customer fulfillment at 17% and cost containment at 15%. The common thread is visibility. Companies want better insight into orders, costs, and supplier conditions so quick decisions don’t snowball into bigger problems. Speed without accuracy burned too many teams in 2025. Now the focus is on durable flexibility and operational proactive scenario planning.
Middle-market firms aren’t waiting around. A staggering 91% now use generative AI in some capacity, and the payoff is already materializing. Nearly two-thirds of companies that adopted AI reported improved workforce efficiency through task automation. Another 56% shortened cycle times, and 49% cut costs. West Monroe’s conclusion: manufacturers no longer treat global instability as temporary. Bring on 2026.
Morgan Stanley sees a supply-side catalyst brewing for trucking next year, though demand will need to show up. Ravi Shanker, the firm’s transportation equities analyst, pointed out that the past three trucking upcycles (2014, 2018, and 2020) all started with supply constraints before demand kicked in. Stricter regulatory enforcement on drivers — including English-language proficiency requirements, non-domiciled CDL restrictions, and ELD crackdowns — could remove more than 5% of industry capacity. That squeeze, combined with carriers already exiting the scene due to cost inflation and depressed rates, may finally start tipping the scales.
Shanker’s base case predicts mid-single-digit increases in truckload contract rates for 2026, with a bull case reaching high-single to low-double-digit gains if demand improves. Carrier margins have declined for three consecutive years as operating costs outpaced rate growth, so even modest pricing recovery would be welcome news. A proprietary shipper survey showed restocking sentiment jumped from 9% to 23% during Q3, though only 8% of respondents plan to continue building inventories throughout 2026.
Morgan Stanley upgraded its freight transportation industry outlook to “Attractive,” calling the risk-reward profile the most favorable since 2020. Shanker’s 2026 earnings forecasts run 12% higher than consensus for truckload carriers and 7% higher for LTLs. Knight-Swift remains his top pick, followed by GXO, Ryder System, and railroads CN and Canadian Pacific Kansas City. Old Dominion also got bumped to “Outperform,” with its 30% excess network capacity positioning it to grab market share when volumes return.
Finally, let’s talk about a city that’s been making headlines lately. And no, not just because Zohran Mamdani is about to take the reins at City Hall. Just before Thanksgiving, the NYC comptroller’s office released a report showing how the city’s e-commerce obsession has turned into a street-level crisis. New Yorkers receive roughly 2.5 million packages daily, a 109% increase since 2017. The consequences are piling up: more crashes, more injured workers, and neighborhoods choking on diesel fumes.
Since 2017, 18 large last mile delivery facilities have opened across New York City, with 11 arriving after 2020. The neighborhoods hosting these warehouses have paid the price. After the facilities opened, 78% of surrounding areas saw increases in injury-causing crashes, with injuries within a half-mile radius rising an average of 16%. Truck-related crashes jumped 146%, and truck-involved injury crashes spiked 137%. Even worse, 68% of these warehouses are located in designated Environmental Justice Areas, where air pollution already exceeds citywide averages.
Between 2022 and 2024, 76% of the 50 facilities tracked reported injuries to OSHA, totaling over 2,000 injuries — about 678 per year. Injury rates reached 8.3 per 100 employees, triple the national average. The DART rate, which tracks injuries severe enough to require time off, climbed to 7.2, nearly five times the national norm. Amazon’s Delivery Service Partner program fared worse: a 9.2 injury rate and 8.1 DART rate. In response, the comptroller is pushing for the Delivery Protection Act, aimed at finally holding the industry accountable.
Record-breaking sales mean nothing if your middle mile delivery stalls or your last mile collapses under holiday pressure. With trucking capacity tightening and streets more congested than ever, every link in your supply chain is under scrutiny.
FRAYT built a network of 45,000+ professional drivers across 150+ markets to solve this, delivering dependable service without drama — or inflated prices.
From the middle mile to the last mile, we will be with you every step of the way. Sign up with FRAYT now and watch your supply chain transform from good to great.
