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Guide · Black Friday 2026

Black Friday prep for Shopify stores: a five-week checklist

Black Friday is Friday 27 November 2026 and Cyber Monday is 30 November. Here is what to do each week until then, starting with what twelve big Shopify brands were already doing five weeks out.

Last updated 22 October 2026 · about 8 minutes to read

What the big brands are doing, five weeks out

We read each brand’s US storefront on 22 October 2026: the homepage banners, and the public product feed that every Shopify store publishes. A product counts as discounted when its compare-at price is higher than its price. For the largest catalogues we read the first 1,000 products only.

Three patterns stand out:

• The strongest brands aren’t discounting. Rhode and Kith had nothing marked down. They sell newness and scarcity, and Rhode puts its free-shipping line on the homepage instead.
• For others, the discounting has already started, often as clearance rather than a Black Friday offer: Gymshark, Stanley and Allbirds all had deep cuts live in October.
• Some of the biggest offers don’t show in product prices at all. ColourPop’s 20% is applied in the cart, Fenty’s tiers need a code, and Brooklinen’s sitewide 20% is a homepage banner. If you only check a rival’s prices, you’ll miss them.

Week 1 (26 Oct to 1 Nov): read three competitors

1. Pick the three stores your customers actually compare you with, not the biggest names in your category.
2. For each one, write down the homepage headline and banners, the free-shipping line, and anything marked “new”.
3. Open /products.json?limit=250 on their domain. Count the products whose compare_at_price is above price, and note the newest published_at dates.
4. Date the notes and repeat every week. The change between two readings is the signal; a single reading is just a snapshot.

Our free competitor checker does the homepage and price-range part in one go, with no install and no account.

Week 2 (2 to 8 Nov): choose your offer and your floor

• Set your floor first. Work out the deepest discount your margin survives after shipping, payment fees and returns, and write it down before you see anyone else’s Black Friday offer.
• Pick a shape, not just a number. Percent off sitewide, tiered spend-more-save-more (Fenty), a gift with purchase (Rare Beauty), bundles (Kylie, Brooklinen), or full price plus scarcity (Rhode, Kith).
• Decide what you won’t discount. New launches and bestsellers you can’t restock before Christmas are the usual candidates.
• Check your free-shipping line against theirs. On 22 October: Rhode $45, Stanley $50, Rare Beauty $50, Brooklinen $100.

Week 3 (9 to 15 Nov): build the list and write the emails

• Put an early-access sign-up on your homepage now. Your own list is the cheapest Black Friday traffic you will get.
• Write the emails while you still have time: early access (a day or two before), launch (Black Friday morning), last chance (Cyber Monday) and your Christmas shipping cut-off.
• Schedule the social posts that go with each email, so the busy week is spent answering customers, not writing copy.

Week 4 (16 to 22 Nov): get the store and support ready

Test the boring parts

• Buy something on your phone, end to end, with a discount code. Then do it again with a gift card or your second payment method.
• Check page speed after every new app you install for the sale, and remove the ones you don’t need.
• Update the FAQ: Christmas shipping cut-offs, your returns window (many stores extend it into January), and whether discounts combine.
• If you sell clothing or shoes, check the size guidance on your best sellers. Sale shoppers order fast, and a wrong size comes back as a return in January. A Shopify size chart app such as AI Fit Finder can recommend a size on the product page.

Get support ready for the rush

Black Friday questions are repetitive: “where is my order”, “does the code work on sale items”, “will it arrive before Christmas”. Write the answers once, as saved replies. If your inbox and DMs already struggle on a normal Friday, an AI agent can take the first pass: Manifest AI, for example, lets you build agents that handle support and marketing conversations across chat, email, Instagram and WhatsApp. Whatever you use, give it your real cut-offs and returns policy, and keep a person on anything about a specific order.

Check accessibility before the traffic spike

Tab through your menu, a product page and checkout with only the keyboard; check that product images have alt text, that sale badges have enough colour contrast, and that form fields have labels. If you sell to customers in the EU, the European Accessibility Act has applied to most online shops since 28 June 2025 (micro-enterprises are exempt). Accessibility Assistant’s free Website Accessibility Scanner checks a page for WCAG issues, and its app can also generate alt text and add an accessibility widget; fix what the scan finds in your theme rather than relying on the widget alone.

Week 5 (23 to 30 Nov): watch, then answer

• From Monday, check your three competitors’ homepages every day. Banners change first; prices follow.
• If a rival undercuts you, answer with something they can’t copy by Friday: a bundle, a gift, a better shipping promise. Match the price only on true commodities.
• Send the emails as scheduled, and resend the last-chance email to people who didn’t open it.

After Cyber Monday

• Send new customers a thank-you and a reason to come back in January, not another discount.
• Write down what each competitor did and when. Next year’s planning starts from those notes.

Common questions