Starting Black Friday Planning in October

Six weeks from tomorrow

Black Friday falls on November 29 this year, six weeks from tomorrow, with Cyber Monday on December 2.

Many small online stores start planning it the week before. The offer is decided on a Tuesday, the discount code is created on Thursday night, and the email goes out on Friday morning with a link nobody tested.

None of that is laziness. November is busy, and Black Friday comes at the end of it.

But nearly every problem on the day was set up in the weeks before, and six weeks is enough to set things up properly.

Working back from November 29

• The offer, decided by the end of October.
• The stock behind it, ordered before suppliers' own rush.
• The site, tested with the code and the traffic in mind.
• The emails, written and scheduled by mid-November.
• The shipping dates, published before anyone has to ask.
• A freeze on site changes from November 22.

The second has the longest lead time. Suppliers have their own busy season, and an order placed in mid-November may arrive after the sale it was meant for.

Decide the offer first

Everything else depends on the offer, so it comes first. A discount on everything, a gift with purchase, free shipping above a threshold, a bundle: each needs different stock, different wording and a different setup at checkout.

Work out what it costs before choosing. After the discount, the card fees and the shipping, some products make nothing at all, and some lose money on every order.

Pick one offer and give it an end date. Two overlapping promotions confuse customers, and they usually confuse the checkout as well.

If a regular price appears beside the sale price, it should be one the store has genuinely charged. Canada's Competition Act covers regular price claims.

Stock for the products you promote

An offer sends people to particular products, and those are the ones that sell out first. Check how many of each you hold, and how many sold last November.

Reorder the promoted products now, while suppliers can still deliver in time. Ask each one directly for its last order date for delivery before the end of November.

Decide in advance what happens when something sells out: whether its page says so and points to an alternative, or the offer moves to another product. Deciding that at noon on the day goes badly.

Test the site before the traffic does

A sale concentrates weeks of visits into a few hours, often because of one email that everybody opens at once.

Ask whoever looks after the site what the hosting plan can handle, and whether the checkout has been tested with many people using it at once. A load test, which simulates those visitors, answers that before customers do.

Test the discount code too, every way a customer might use it: on sale items, with other codes, on gift cards, below any minimum, and on a phone.

Some payment providers review accounts whose sales jump suddenly. If yours does, telling it about the sale in advance is better than a held payout in the busiest week.

A worked example

A two-person woodworking shop making cutting boards and serving trays does most of its business online, and Black Friday weekend is its busiest.

Last year the offer was decided on the Wednesday before. The code applied to everything in the store, including gift cards, so customers could buy store credit at a discount and spend it later.

The two best-selling boards sold out by Saturday morning, because walnut for the next batch was still on order. The launch email linked to a collection page that had not been published.

This year the offer was settled in early October: a free bottle of board oil with any cutting board, a smaller discount on serving trays, and gift cards excluded from both.

The walnut was ordered the same week. The code has been tested on a copy of the store, the emails are written, and the Christmas shipping dates are on the shipping page and in the cart.

Write the emails now

Emails written the night before read that way. Write the whole sequence now, while there is time to read each one twice.

For most small stores that means four messages: early notice to the list, the launch, a reminder before the weekend ends, and a last call on Cyber Monday.

Schedule them, then send a test of each to yourself and check every link on a phone. Send only to people who have consented to your email; Canada's anti-spam law applies on Black Friday too.

Shipping dates and pickup

Black Friday shoppers are often Christmas shoppers, and their first question is whether it will arrive in time.

Set the last order dates for Christmas delivery now, for each shipping method, and publish them on the shipping page and in the cart before the sale starts.

If you have a shop or a workshop people can visit, offer local pickup. It costs nothing, sidesteps the couriers' busiest weeks, and suits anyone buying for someone across town.

Freezing the site for the final week

From about November 22, the site should stay as it is: no plugin or theme updates, no new features, no design changes.

Do the updates in the weeks before, so there is time to fix whatever they break. A change made in the last week is the one that breaks the checkout on Friday morning, with nobody free to fix it.

The only changes allowed in the final week are the ones already planned: scheduled banners, stock levels and prices.

The counter-case

Not every store needs to take part. A shop whose customers buy for reasons other than price can skip discounts entirely and still use the six weeks to prepare for the rush.

A store with modest volumes may not need a load test, though it still needs a tested code, published shipping dates and a quiet final week.

And a first Black Friday can be small on purpose: one offer, one email, one product line.

Whatever the size, the order is the same: offer, stock, site, emails, dates, freeze.

The six weeks in order

1. Decide one offer and its end date.
2. Work out the margin after fees and shipping.
3. Reorder the products you will promote.
4. Ask what the hosting plan can handle.
5. Test the discount code on a copy.
6. Write and schedule the four emails.
7. Book the freeze from November 22.

Step five is the one that fails most publicly. A code that applies where it should not, or refuses where it should, is found by customers first, at the busiest hour of the year.

Offers that do not depend on being the cheapest are covered in competing with a Prime Day sale.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.