Black Friday 2026 falls on Friday, November 27, and Cyber Monday on November 30. If you start planning the week before, you choose offers in a hurry, test discounts on live customers, and find out on Friday morning that the banner says the wrong thing. This Black Friday plan for Shopify stores works backward from the dates, for a store with a small team and about six weeks to prepare.
Short answer: Black Friday 2026 is Friday, November 27, and Cyber Monday is November 30. Start six weeks out: choose one offer and check its margin, build and test discounts four weeks out, sort stock three weeks out, check speed and freeze changes from November 23, then review the week after.
Key takeaways
- Black Friday 2026 is Friday, November 27, US Thanksgiving is Thursday, November 26, and Cyber Monday 2026 is Monday, November 30.
- Shopify starts and ends scheduled discounts in the store time zone set under Settings > General in the Shopify admin, not in the shopper's time zone.
- In a hypothetical $80 product with $38 of landed cost, shipping and fees, a 40% Black Friday discount needs more than twice the units of a 25% discount to earn the same gross profit.
- Shopify reported that its merchants made a record $14.6 billion in sales over BFCM 2025, up 27% on 2024.
- A change freeze from Monday, November 23, 2026, keeps new apps, theme edits and pricing experiments off a Shopify store during the BFCM weekend.
What should I do if I'm starting late?
With three weeks or less, do four things in this order and skip the rest:
- Choose one offer and check its margin.
- Build the discount with real start and end dates, then test it on a real cart.
- Check stock on every promoted product.
- Walk the whole checkout on a phone.
When is Black Friday 2026 for Shopify stores?
Black Friday 2026 is Friday, November 27, and Cyber Monday 2026 is Monday, November 30. Many Shopify stores treat Thursday through Monday as one five-day event, and some start earlier in November.
| Day | Date |
|---|---|
| Thanksgiving (US) | Thursday, November 26, 2026 |
| Black Friday | Friday, November 27, 2026 |
| Cyber Monday | Monday, November 30, 2026 |
Pick your window now and write it down. Stock, discount dates, emails and staffing all hang off that one decision.
The weekend matters on Shopify. Shopify reported that its merchants made a record $14.6 billion in sales over BFCM 2025, up 27% on 2024, with sales peaking at 12:01 p.m. EST on Black Friday. Your numbers will differ, but traffic arrives in bursts, and anything fragile breaks during a burst.
Six weeks out: how do I choose a Black Friday offer?
Choose the offer by margin first and discount size second. For every product you plan to promote, write down the landed cost, the current price, and the lowest price you can accept after discount, shipping and payment fees.
A hypothetical shows why. Say a product sells for $80, costs you $32 landed, and takes about $6 in shipping and fees. At 25% off you sell it for $60 and keep $22. At 40% off you sell it for $48 and keep $10. The bigger discount needs more than twice the units to earn the same gross profit.
Then choose one headline offer:
- Sitewide percentage off. Easy to explain, expensive on low-margin items.
- Collection or product discounts. You decide exactly where you give margin away.
- Spend more, save more tiers. Rewards bigger carts instead of every cart.
- Gift with purchase. Keeps your headline prices intact.
- Free shipping above a threshold. Works well alongside a modest discount.
Keep it to one headline offer and at most one supporting offer. Shoppers skim during BFCM, and a banner with five conditions gets ignored. For a short burst inside the weekend, such as a Cyber Monday-only deal, read our guide to running a flash sale without wrecking margin.
Four weeks out: build and test the discounts
Four weeks out, build every discount with its real dates and test it on a real cart. An automatic discount applies without the customer typing anything; a discount code is entered at checkout.
For a public sitewide event, automatic discounts remove friction. Codes suit email subscribers, VIPs or a single channel. Shopify also caps how many automatic discounts can be active and how many codes can combine on one order, so check those limits in automatic discounts vs discount codes before you design anything clever.
Shopify starts and ends discounts in your store's time zone, which you set under Settings > General > Store defaults, not the shopper's. If your store runs on Eastern time and a discount starts November 26, it starts at midnight Eastern. Our post on scheduling a Shopify sale covers this step by step.
Watch for accidental double discounts. A compare-at price is the higher original price Shopify shows crossed out beside a lower sale price. If you lower prices with compare-at prices and also run a sitewide automatic discount, sale items can get both reductions, because Shopify treats sale prices and discounts as separate things. Put a sale item in a test cart to see the final price. Each discount's combination settings decide whether it stacks with other discounts.
Discount test checklist
- Build each discount now with its real start and end dates.
- Test the logic on a real cart using a temporary code or a short test window, then remove the test version.
- Put a full-price item, a sale item and an excluded item in one cart and check every line.
- Try the free-shipping threshold just under and just over the limit.
- Try the combinations you allow, and the ones you don't.
- Check the cart and checkout on a phone.
Three weeks out: stock, shipping and product pages
Three weeks out, lock in stock and delivery promises for every promoted product. Reorder best sellers now if lead times allow, and make sure inventory tracking is on for everything in the sale so you don't sell stock you don't have.
Publish your holiday shipping cutoffs once your carriers confirm them. A clear "order by" date on the product page and in the cart answers the question shoppers otherwise send to support. Each promoted product page should also show the price, the delivery estimate and a short link to your returns policy.
When should I send Black Friday emails and texts?
Send a teaser about two weeks out, early access the day before, the launch on opening morning, and reminders over the weekend and on Cyber Monday. Only message people who agreed to hear from you.
| When | Send | Goal |
|---|---|---|
| Two weeks out | Teaser and early-access sign-up | Build a list of people who want first access |
| Day before your window opens | Early-access send to that list | Reward your most engaged customers |
| Launch morning | Main offer announcement | Reach everyone subscribed |
| Saturday or Sunday | Short reminder for anything selling out | Prompt fence-sitters |
| Cyber Monday morning | Last-day reminder | Final push before the end time |
Write every message before Thursday and check each link against the live discount. Also check your abandoned checkout recovery: Shopify offers an automatic abandoned checkout email, set up in the admin under Apps > Messaging > Automations, and busy weekends produce plenty of half-finished checkouts.
Two weeks out: speed, apps and a theme backup
Two weeks out, check site speed, remove apps you don't use and duplicate your live theme. Shopify's web performance reports show how real visitors experience your store, and their Over Time charts mark app installs and theme changes. Our guide to the Core Web Vitals fixes that matter most shows what to fix first.
- Remove unused apps and check that their storefront pieces are gone.
- Test every popup, banner and cart drawer on a phone.
- Duplicate your live theme as a fallback. Basic, Grow and Advanced stores can hold up to 20 themes in the library and Plus stores up to 100, so you may need to delete an old one first.
Then set a change freeze, a period when nothing new goes live except fixes. A sensible start is Monday, November 23. New apps, theme edits and pricing experiments wait until December.
Most of this plan needs no app and no developer. Shopify's native automatic discounts, discount codes and abandoned checkout automation cover a typical BFCM offer. Outside help makes sense for theme fixes, speed work or custom offer logic your team can't finish before the freeze.
BFCM week: run the plan
Make one person the decision owner for the weekend, so a misbehaving discount at 7 a.m. gets turned off quickly. Each morning from Thursday to Monday:
- Confirm the right discounts are active and old ones have ended.
- Walk a cart through to checkout on a phone.
- Check stock on your top ten products and hide or swap anything close to zero.
- Read overnight support messages and update your saved replies.
- Check the banner and announcement bar text against the current offer.
What should I do the week after Black Friday?
End everything on time, then turn new buyers into repeat buyers. Discounts with end dates stop on their own, but banners, theme sections and compare-at prices often don't, so set a reminder for Tuesday, December 1.
Send a thank-you or how-to-use email after delivery, and point first-time customers to your December gift ideas at regular prices. Finally, write down which offer earned the most gross profit, which products ran out and when, what support answered most, and what broke. Those notes are your starting point for BFCM 2027.
What are the risks of running a Black Friday sale?
A Black Friday sale can bring a burst of orders, but it also costs margin, pulls some sales forward and loads your team in one busy week. For some stores, a smaller offer or no sale at all is the better choice.
- Some sales would have happened anyway. Shoppers who planned to buy in November often wait for the event, so part of the weekend's revenue is regular demand at a lower price.
- Discount-led buyers may not return at full price. Customers who arrive for a deep discount can be harder to keep once prices go back to normal.
- Capacity sets a ceiling. If you make products to order or hold little stock, a spike in orders can turn into late deliveries and a long support queue.
- Preparation takes real time. Six weeks of planning, testing and a change freeze is time a small team isn't spending on anything else.
FAQ
When is Black Friday 2026?
Black Friday 2026 is Friday, November 27. Thanksgiving in the US is Thursday, November 26, and Cyber Monday is Monday, November 30. Many Shopify stores run one promotion across all five days, and some start earlier in November. Decide your window about six weeks ahead, because stock, discount dates and emails all depend on it.
Should I use an automatic discount or a discount code for Black Friday on Shopify?
For a public sitewide offer, an automatic discount is usually easier because it applies without the shopper typing anything. A discount code suits targeted offers, such as early access for your email list or a VIP deal. Whichever you pick, check its combination settings and its start and end times, which follow your store's time zone.
How early should I start preparing my Shopify store for BFCM?
About six weeks is comfortable for a small team: choose the offer first, build and test discounts four weeks out, sort stock and shipping three weeks out, and check speed two weeks out. If you have three weeks or less, focus on one offer, a tested discount, stock on promoted products and a phone checkout walk-through.
Need a hand before the weekend?
PreTech Park, a Shopify app and theme studio, helps stores with offer setup, theme fixes and speed checks before big sales through its Conversion & Growth Optimization and Maintenance & Technical Support services. If your team can handle the plan above alone, you won't need us. If not, see what we do on our services page.