Black Friday Preparation Checklist
A Black Friday checklist for online stores: plan offers, stock and shipping cut-offs, test the site, brief support and run the BFCM weekend without surprises.
- Typical schedule yearly
- The checklist 5 sections, 23 items
- Variables
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Use this checklist to prepare an online store for Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) and the holiday season that follows. Start it in early autumn. Stock, packaging and carrier capacity need weeks of lead time, and the last two weeks before Black Friday are for testing and freezing changes, not for building.
Who owns it
The e-commerce manager or store owner owns the run. Marketing owns the offers and the campaign calendar, operations owns stock and fulfilment, and whoever maintains the site owns the technical checks and the change freeze. Agree before the weekend who can change prices or pause a campaign.
Common pitfalls
- Discount codes that stack. Automatic discounts combined with codes from influencers or newsletters can sell products below cost. Test every combination you will run.
- Overselling. Stock synced between several channels can lag behind during traffic peaks. Keep a buffer for best sellers or reduce the channels you sell on.
- New apps or themes the week before. Every change adds risk at the worst moment. Freeze changes and keep a list of who to call if something breaks.
- Shipping promises you cannot keep. Publish the carrier's last order dates for holiday delivery, and update them on the site as they pass.
Running it in Runbook gives the whole team the same plan and leaves a record you can reuse and improve next year.
The checklist: Black Friday and Cyber Monday {{year}}
Plan offers
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Agree the BFCM offers, dates and times, and the products included
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Confirm the margin on each offer after discount, shipping and payment fees
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Decide whether discounts can be combined, and write the rules down
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Prepare the campaign calendar: emails, ads, social posts and site banners with send times
Stock and fulfilment
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Order stock for best sellers early enough to arrive before the campaign
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Set a safety stock buffer for best sellers sold on several channels
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Order extra packaging, labels and printer supplies
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Confirm carrier capacity, pickup times and holiday shipping cut-off dates
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Arrange extra packing staff or warehouse capacity for the week after Black Friday optional
Site readiness
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Set up the offers as scheduled discounts and test them in a staging store or with a test order
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Test every planned discount combination, including codes from partners and newsletters
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Check page speed of the home page, top product pages and checkout on a phone
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Load-test the site or confirm your platform plan handles peak traffic optional
Hosted platforms such as Shopify handle this for you; self-hosted stores (e.g. WooCommerce) should test.
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Publish holiday shipping deadlines and the extended returns policy, if you offer one
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Start a change freeze for themes, apps and integrations until after Cyber Monday
Support and monitoring
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Update support saved replies for discounts, delivery times and returns
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Agree support cover and response times for the BFCM weekend
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Set up alerts for failed payments, stock-outs and site downtime
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Share an escalation list with phone numbers for the platform, payment provider and developer
During and after
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Check orders, stock and payment errors several times a day during the BFCM weekend
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End the offers at the advertised time and confirm prices return to normal
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Review results against plan: revenue, margin, stock-outs and support volume
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Record lessons learned for
{{year}}in this run for next year's preparation
Checklist as Markdown
Frequently asked questions
When should I start preparing for Black Friday?
Start in early autumn. Stock orders and carrier capacity need the longest lead time, followed by planning offers and building campaign content. Aim to have the offers set up and tested, and a change freeze in place, in the last week or two before Black Friday.
How do I prepare my website for Black Friday traffic?
Check page speed on mobile, remove apps and scripts you do not need, and test the checkout and discounts end to end. If you host the store yourself, load-test it or confirm your hosting can scale. Freeze changes before the weekend and have an escalation list ready in case something fails.
What should be on a BFCM checklist?
The main areas are offers and margins, stock and fulfilment, site readiness, customer support and monitoring during the weekend. Close with a review of results. The details in each area depend on your store's size and channels, so mark the steps that do not apply as optional.
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