Shopify Black Friday checklist: a 4-week plan to BFCM
Black Friday 2026 falls on Friday, November 27, with Cyber Monday on November 30. If you run a Shopify store, that leaves about four weeks from the end of October. Four weeks is enough to plan a calm, profitable BFCM weekend, as long as you work through it in order instead of all at once on Thanksgiving night.
This checklist breaks the run-up into one block per week. Tick off each item, adjust it to your store, and you will go into the weekend knowing what you are selling, at what price, to whom, and who is answering customer questions.
Week 1: decide the offer and check the numbers
Everything else depends on the offer, so settle it first.
- Pick one clear offer. A percentage off sitewide, a discount on a hero product, a free gift over a set order value, or a bundle. One simple offer is easier to explain in an email subject line than three stacked ones.
- Choose which products are in and out. Low-margin items, products with thin stock and new launches often work better left out of the discount.
- Run the margin math on every discounted product. Take your price, subtract the discount, product cost, payment fees, packaging and shipping you cover, and see what is left per order. Our free sale discount profit calculator shows profit per sale and how many extra sales you need to make the same profit as at full price.
- Know your break-even ad spend. If you plan to run ads, work out how much you can spend per order before it stops being worth it. The free ROAS calculator and break-even calculator help with this.
- Write down the dates and times. Start, end, any early access for subscribers, and whether the offer carries through Cyber Monday. Put them in one place so emails, banners and discount settings all match.
Week 2: stock, suppliers and shipping
A sale that sells out on Friday morning, or ships late, costs you more than it earns.
- Estimate how much you might sell. Use last year's BFCM orders if you have them, or your best recent week as a rough baseline, and plan stock for more than a normal week.
- Place reorders now. Suppliers get busy in November. Our free inventory reorder point calculator helps you work out when to reorder based on daily sales and lead time.
- Confirm carrier and holiday cut-off dates. Check your carriers' holiday shipping deadlines and decide the last order date you can promise for delivery before the holidays.
- Stock up on packaging. Boxes, mailers, labels, tape and inserts run out at the worst time.
- Plan fulfillment capacity. Who packs orders, how many per day, and what happens if volume doubles? Decide before it happens.
Week 3: emails, SMS and store setup
This is the week you build the campaign so that launch day is mostly pressing buttons.
- Write the email sequence. A typical BFCM sequence has a teaser or early-access email, a launch email, a reminder, a last-chance email, and a Cyber Monday email. Schedule them in your email app with the real dates.
- Write short SMS messages if you have SMS subscribers who have opted in. Keep them brief and link straight to the offer.
- Set up the discount in Shopify as a discount code or an automatic discount, with the exact start and end time, and the products or collections it applies to. Test it on a real cart before the day.
- Prepare the storefront. An announcement bar, a homepage banner, and a sale collection page so shoppers can find the deals fast.
- Update product pages. Clear photos, accurate descriptions, and visible shipping and return information reduce questions and hesitation.
- Review your policies. Make sure your shipping, refund and return policies say what you actually do, including any holiday return window you plan to offer.
Week 4: test, prep support, and launch
The final week is for checking, not building.
- Place a test order on desktop and mobile, with the discount applied, through to the confirmation email.
- Check page speed and broken links. Click every banner and email link and make sure it lands on the right page.
- Review your apps. Make sure the apps you rely on, such as reviews, upsells, email and shipping, are working, and pause anything you are not using.
- Prepare customer service replies. Write ready-to-paste answers for the questions you will get: "Where is my order?", "Can I use two codes?", "Did my discount apply?", "What is your return window?". If someone helps you with support, give them these replies and a short note on what they can approve on their own.
- Decide who watches what. Someone checks orders, stock levels and the inbox at set times over the weekend.
During the weekend and after
- Watch stock and turn off or swap products that sell out, so ads and emails do not send people to empty pages.
- Answer messages quickly. Fast replies during a sale help turn questions into orders.
- End the offer when you said you would. Remove banners and expire discount codes on time.
- Write a short review. Orders, revenue, profit after discounts and ad spend, what sold out, and what you would change. Next year's checklist starts with these notes.
Want the templates instead of a blank page?
The BFCM & Product Launch Playbook is a Black Friday planner for Shopify stores with Cyber Monday email templates, SMS copy and a product launch checklist, in Google Docs and Sheets. Edit the templates to fit your offer, your products and your voice, and use the checklist to keep the four weeks on track. It is also available on Etsy (opens in a new tab).
If you want the planner plus SOPs, a dashboard, a profit calculator and more, the Ultimate Store Owner Bundle includes Email Templates & BFCM Planner alongside the other tools.
Templates are general guidance, not legal, tax or financial advice. Dates and offers are examples; set yours to fit your store.