The hidden cost of Black Friday/Cyber Monday
June 29, 2026
Our research finds 96% of retailers were confident they were fully compliant going into BFCM 2025. But 71% were hit with unexpected compliance costs after BFCM. The pattern shows liability created in November, but costs arriving in Q1.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) hasn't been optional for a while. 93% of retailers will run dedicated campaigns in 2026, and 86% call it a key revenue driver. For most, showing up isn't a decision, it's a commercial requirement.
But BFCM has a second story. One that doesn't show up in the post-weekend dashboards.
We surveyed 1,000 retail and SaaS decision-makers across the U.S. and UK. They described serious investment, real ambition, and compliance exposure most of them didn't see coming.
“Every year, the BFCM conversation is about the topline. The retailers who do it well know there's a second number — the one that arrives quietly in Q1, four months after the revenue was celebrated.”
— Sam Ranieri, CEO | Reach
Opportunity comes with exposure
91% of retailers say BFCM helps them enter new markets and win new customers. That's exactly the behaviour that creates cross-border compliance obligations. Every new market entered over a four-day window could trigger a tax obligation.
The paradox is the bigger the BFCM, the bigger the exposure. The topline looks good, but the margin tells a different story.
The cost nobody budgets for
71% of retailers faced unexpected compliance costs after BFCM and absorbed the costs they didn't see coming. And the timing is the trap: 57% say those costs didn't surface until Q1 of the following year, in a different quarter, when the budget has moved on and the team has celebrated.
The damage compounds in that gap:
For many, the consequence isn't a one-time bill, it reshapes their following year roadmap.
Be prepared is still good advice
This is a preparation problem. Almost half (48%) have taken steps to protect themselves but say they still need more. And 54% of those who've been hit have already limited, or plan to limit, market expansion as a result.
Risk is quietly capping growth before it happens.
What being ready looks like
The retailers who'll look back on BFCM 2026 as a clean win aren't the ones with the biggest campaigns. They're the ones who were ready.
Being ready means having a merchant of record in place before the peak. One that takes on tax calculation, filing, and remittance, plus fraud and chargeback liability, across every market you sell into. The catch with most merchants of record is that they force their own checkout and providers onto you. You trade one set of constraints for another.
Reach is built differently. We're modular merchant of record infrastructure that works alongside your existing stack, not instead of it. How that core connects to your business stays yours: your PSPs, your platforms, your checkout, your workflows. We add the merchant of record layer underneath without asking you to rebuild anything on top.
The liability BFCM creates is manageable, but only if it's handled before it becomes a bill.
Research conducted by Sapio Research among 1,000 retail and SaaS decision-makers across the U.S. and UK, at organizations with 100+ employees. 2026.
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