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Beyond Black Friday: Weather and payday shape offer spending

Wednesday, October 07, 2026 — 16:58:17 (UTC)

Beyond Black Friday: Weather and Payday Shape Offer Spending

London • 07 October 2026

Three years of loyalty and rewards data show when and why consumers use offers, from holiday spikes to weather and payday patterns.

Black Friday and the December holidays get most of the attention from brands planning promotions, but new analysis from leading purchase rewards provider, Valuedynamx, shows they're only part of the story. Consumers look to their rewards programmes for good deals year-round, and when and how they use these offers shifts constantly, with payday, weather and seasonal needs all playing a role.

The analysis draws on millions of real-world purchases made through offers across the Valuedynamx rewards platform. Across more than three years of anonymised activity, purchases took place every day of the 1,172-day reporting period. Beneath that steady activity, clear differences emerged when consumers engaged, what they bought and how they shopped, and the December holiday rush was only one of several distinct patterns.

What the data shows about context and spending:

Temperature quietly shapes spending all year round

Weather changes shopping habits all year round. On cold UK days, below 8°C, spending through offers was 14% higher than a typical day. On the hottest days, above 22°C, spending was 9% lower than normal. It's the temperature that changes how people shop. On cold days, people seem to stay in and shop from their phones or laptops, with online spending up 15%. On warm, sunny days, they head out instead, spending 21% more on food and drink. It's not one big weather event driving this, it's something that happens over and over, all year, whenever the temperature shifts.

Payday is a monthly event with no marketing calendar behind it

Around payday proxy dates, the number of completed purchases made through offers was 5% above the same-weekday baseline and total spend through those purchases was 7% higher. Unlike Black Friday or the holidays, payday isn't a promotional event brands plan around, yet it consistently drives more purchases every single month.

The holidays matter, but they're not the whole story

Spend on gifts and flowers was 107% above baseline in December, the largest lift in the analysis, confirming the holiday surge brands plan around is real. But other moments stood out. Travel spend rose 43% in January, as shoppers booked trips for the new year. Gifts and flowers also climbed 32% in March, around Mother’s Day. Clothes and fashion rose a more modest 11% in June, as shoppers refreshed their summer wardrobes. All three patterns repeated every year of the study, proof they're annual habits, not one-off spikes.

"Consumers do not suddenly become more or less interested in value because the calendar turns or the weather changes. Their context changes,” said Eileen Stephens, Global Marketing Director at Valuedynamx. “For marketing strategies and loyalty programmes, the opportunity is to recognise those differences in the moment and act on them, not just plan around a fixed calendar, and to make the most relevant offers easier to find when they matter most.”

The analysis also found that loyalty to a rewards programme doesn't mean loyalty to one brand within the offer ecosystem. Among shoppers who made repeat offer-linked purchases, 68% shopped across more than one product category, and around 75% shopped with more than one merchant brand. Among shoppers who came back within a year of their first purchase, 41.5% returned in a category they hadn't bought in before, and 53.7% returned to a brand they hadn't used before.

Together, these patterns suggest that a useful rewards programme isn't defined by consumers repeatedly choosing the same merchant, category or time of year, but by offering enough range to stay useful as consumer needs shift throughout the year.

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Source: Company press release.

Categories: Reports and research