Nestlé Projects 50% E-commerce Sales Jump for Brazil Black Friday

Nestlé Brazil expects e-commerce revenue to grow 50% this November across its own and partner channels, with roughly 1 million orders projected on its own virtual stores alone during Black Friday.

Black Friday now ranks as the second most important sales occasion for the Swiss multinational in Brazil, behind only Easter. The milestone reflects a decade-long build-up that began with coffee hardware.

How did Black Friday become Nestlé's number two occasion?

João Pedro Kalil, trade marketing director at Nestlé Brazil since May 2025, said the company's Black Friday push started gaining traction in 2018, driven by sales of Dolce Gusto coffee machines and capsules. That brand had opened its own e-commerce operation back in 2012.

The strategy has since widened beyond coffee. "We stopped talking only about Dolce Gusto at Black Friday and started talking about 'total brands'. So we put in chocolate, Ninho milk, Moça milk, which are hot categories too," Kalil said.

To strengthen its presence in physical stores, Nestlé has multiplied its investment in point-of-sale visibility materials by 3.5 compared with last year, according to the director. The approach also accounts for regional preferences, giving more shelf space to Garoto or Nestlé chocolates depending on each brand's strength in local markets.

Why does 11/11 matter as much as Black Friday?

In e-commerce, purchases are shifting earlier in November to the 11/11 shopping day. Kalil recalled that last year the date surpassed Black Friday itself in sales on the Dolce Gusto website.

For 2025, Nestlé expects equivalent performance from the two dates on its own channel. On marketplaces, it projects 11/11 will outpace Black Friday.

"We expect sales to be higher on 11/11 than on Black Friday. Much higher," Kalil said, referring to operations with Amazon and Mercado Livre.

Marketplace partnerships expanded from 2020, and the platforms now account for roughly half of Dolce Gusto machine sales cited by the executive. Food retail remains the main engine of the company's broader Black Friday strategy.

The platforms have also become a media buy. Kalil said Nestlé has increased advertising spending on marketplaces, which now function in part as media vehicles — a shift underscored by Mercado Livre's growing advertising revenue over the past year.

"These guys have also become, in a way, a media company, because at the end of the day you're advertising on a site that knows who bought coffee capsules," he said.

The takeaway: with 11/11 rising and marketplaces doubling as ad platforms, Nestlé's November playbook now spans two shopping dates, half its machine sales and a growing media budget.