---
title: "eRetail seasons dry up as brands back out of discounting"
url: "https://www.kitsuneai.co/blog/eretail-brands-back-out-of-discounting"
description: "Under Armour and Nike are rebuilding around fewer promotions and more full-price selling. The customer habit those sales events created makes that a harder"
datePublished: "2026-11-09"
dateModified: "2026-11-09"
author: "Ali Imran Memon"
---

[Home](https://www.kitsuneai.co/)[Blog](https://www.kitsuneai.co/blog)eRetail seasons dry up as brands back out of discounting

POV · Brand positioning and retail distribution

# eRetail seasons dry up as brands back out of discounting

Under Armour and Nike are rebuilding around fewer promotions and more full-price selling. The customer habit those sales events created makes that a harder reset than a new pricing memo.

![Ali Imran Memon](https://www.kitsuneai.co/assets/founder-headshot.webp)

**Ali Imran Memon**Founder & CEO, Kitsune AI

Nov 9, 20266 min read

![Editorial illustration of a shopper, apparel and an online-retail fulfilment warehouse.](https://www.kitsuneai.co/assets/blog/cover-eretail-brands-back-out-of-discounting.webp)

*Illustration: Kitsune AI*

**TL;DR**

- Under Armour and Nike are cutting promotion intensity while sales and inventories still need repair.
- Black Friday and 11.11 grew from event days into extended calendars that train shoppers to wait for a better price.
- Shoppers have noticed. [BCG found only 54% trust](https://www.bcg.com/press/4november2026-consumer-trust-black-friday-discounts-promotion-fatigue) that Black Friday prices are genuinely lower than usual.
- Brands can win full-price sales only when the product, stock and channel experience earn them.

Shopify, Amazon, Alibaba and other global e-commerce giants are seeing a disturbing trend coming up from brands who refuse to participate in discounting after years of growing e-retailers at their own cost. Under Armour wants shoppers to pay more willingly for the brand. Every online promotion teaches a customer when to buy and that was good when it was habit building and sustainable as a growth strategy for brands. 2 decades later, consumers now expect a discount from any brand regardless of who it is. Right now, we are heading into "sales" seasons with Black Friday, Good Sunday, 11.11 and everything in between depending on where you are in the world.

Shopify gives merchants tools to build their own storefronts and sell across channels. Amazon sellers list products inside Amazon’s store, while Alibaba’s 11.11 is a marketplace event with discounts set across Tmall and Taobao. A brand can set its own offer on a Shopify storefront. On a marketplace, it is also competing for visibility inside an event the platform controls. ([Shopify, About](https://www.shopify.com/about), [Amazon Seller Central](https://sell.amazon.com/tools/seller-central), [Alibaba, 2023 11.11 campaign](https://www.alibabagroup.com/en-US/document-1656793547241684992))

## Under Armour and Nike are moving toward full-price sales

Under Armour’s November 6 results show a business with plenty to fix: second-quarter revenue fell 7% to $1.2 billion, e-commerce fell 12%, and inventory rose 4% to $1.1 billion. Management is cutting promotions and changing the assortment while it rebuilds the brand. Nike told investors that after aggressive promotion cuts, its off-price business in EMEA was down over 50% and full-price realization improved by 15 points. In China, Nike said average retail discounts were down and full-price realization on digital was recovering. These are deliberate changes in the price mix. Both companies remain active in online retail. ([Under Armour, Q2 FY2027 results](https://about.underarmour.com/en/stories/press-releases/release.f7b5dd28-5002-4cbd-8946-122407fdbfc4.html), [Nike, FY2026 earnings transcript](https://investors.nike.com/financial-information/financial-results/transcript/9540/fy-2026-transcript))

Under Armour’s own plan shows the work behind the price claim. Retail Dive’s Cara Salpini reported this week that Under Armour plans more full-price products in outlet stores, while refining its full-price assortment and creating stronger showrooms. The label on the door does not settle the price customers pay. The product range, stock allocation and markdown schedule inside each channel do. Its latest report recorded inventory up 4% year over year. A premium promise has to survive in that clearance plumbing, where shoppers have learned to look for last season’s price. ([Retail Dive, “Under Armour to sell more full-price product at outlet stores”](https://www.retaildive.com/news/under-armour-q2-earnings-sales-declines-licensed-youth-sports/873996/))

## Sale calendars outgrew single days

That customer expectation was built one event at a time. Black Friday began as a concentrated post-Thanksgiving rush. Cyber Monday gave online retail its own named moment, then the bargain window spread into November and October. The Bureau of Labor Statistics describes the old door-buster as a two-month event, with promotions advertised as early as October. Alibaba started 11.11 in 2009 as a one-day shopping festival. By 2023, its own campaign ran for 19 days, used presales and multiple checkout windows, and included platform-wide discounts. In 2024, Associated Press reported that the festival had expanded into weeks of promotion across competing platforms and physical stores. The event is now a price season spread across the calendar. ([U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Black Friday shopping history](https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-12/how-have-the-pandemic-and-online-spending-affected-black-friday-shopping-analyzing-retail-trade-margins-2009-22.htm), [Alibaba, 2023 11.11 campaign](https://www.alibabagroup.com/en-US/document-1656793547241684992), [AP, “Singles’ Day shopping festival loses its shine”](https://apnews.com/article/f2a2ef53af878b61ce2c43e9196d7da5))

Platforms have a reason to make that window large. A prominent event concentrates visits, advertising, inventory and conversion in the same period. Alibaba’s 2023 Tmall campaign offered RMB50 off each RMB300 spent, alongside a broader 15% direct-discount venue and coupons. More than one million brands and merchants said they would invest in promotions to reach that event’s traffic. The marketplace gets a traffic event and a reason for merchants to buy promotion. A brand may get trial or clear excess inventory, but it gives up margin and teaches the buyer to compare the event price with the regular one. Those goals can coexist until the shopper refuses to pay the regular one.

## Shoppers are losing trust in event prices

The evidence of that conditioning is more than a brand executive’s complaint. BCG’s November 2026 survey of 10,220 shoppers across ten countries found 54% trusted that Black Friday prices were genuinely lower than usual, and one in five actively distrusted advertised discounts. Twenty-two percent planned to spend less or skip year-end events because discounts seemed available all the time. The findings show that promotions have lost credibility with a large share of the market. When a sale runs for weeks, the full-price date becomes the price shoppers are trained to doubt. ([BCG, “Only 54% of Consumers Trust That Black Friday Discounts Are Lower Than Normal”](https://www.bcg.com/press/4november2026-consumer-trust-black-friday-discounts-promotion-fatigue))

That is the margin trap brands are trying to escape. In August, [Retail Dive’s Daphne Howland reported](https://www.retaildive.com/news/will-people-pay-more-under-armour-discounts-full-price/827321/) that Under Armour customers had formed a habit of turning to its direct channel for promotions as the company tested more full-price offers there. A recent [Glossy account by Danny Parisi](https://www.glossy.co/fashion/discounting-is-a-hard-drug-to-come-off-but-retraining-customers-to-shop-full-price-is-a-must-brand-leaders-say/) captures brand leaders describing the same retraining problem across fashion and beauty. One company’s playbook will not fit every category. A launch discount can acquire a new user. A seasonal markdown can clear genuine excess. A permanent event price turns the event into the only price that counts.

## Brands need products worth buying at full price

Lush makes the limit of the trend clear. The company says it does not run Black Friday sales and reserves occasional discounts for products past its freshness standard. That policy has lasted for years. Lush can refuse the event because its customer relationship supports the choice. Under Armour’s falling revenue and Nike’s inventory work show the reset’s cost: fewer promotions have to be replaced with products customers want at full price. ([Lush, “Does Lush do Black Friday sales?”](https://www.lush.com/uk/en/a/black-friday-values-for-money))

Retailers and brands use sales to move stock, spark trial and meet a price-sensitive customer. Platform incentives kept the event calendar expanding because each party could justify one more promotion. Now a shopper who has learned to wait is harder to win with another badge and countdown clock. Under Armour has to make a smaller, clearer assortment worth its tag. Nike has to keep the product moving without rebuilding its digital business around a markdown. The next sale season will still sell deals. The brands that recover their price will be the ones who give customers a reason to buy before one appears.

EcommerceUnder ArmourRetailDiscountingBrand strategyBrand positioning and retail distributionAmazon Seller CentralArmour’s NovemberEMEADive’s Cara SalpiniLabor StatisticsAssociated PressBlack Friday

![Ali Imran Memon](https://www.kitsuneai.co/assets/founder-headshot.webp)

Ali Imran Memon

Founder & CEO, Kitsune AI

Operator and builder across media, the creator economy and agentic AI. Founder of Kitsune AI, the Agentic AI Foundry. [Talk to the team →](https://www.kitsuneai.co/contact)

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