Black Friday and Cyber Monday discount checklist for Shopify stores

The dates for 2026

Thanksgiving in the US is on Thursday, November 26, so Black Friday is Friday, November 27 and Cyber Monday is Monday, November 30. The weekend in between is part of the same shopping period, and many stores open their offers earlier in the week.

Your first decision is the window. Two common shapes:

• One long campaign, for example from Monday, November 23 to the end of Cyber Monday. Simple to run and easy to explain.
• Two separate campaigns: a Black Friday offer for the weekend and a different Cyber Monday offer. More work, but it gives shoppers a reason to come back and makes it easier to compare the two.

Whatever you choose, write the exact start and end times down and check them against your store's time zone, especially if you sell across several regions.

Six weeks out: decide the offer

Pick the offer from the goal, not from what everyone else is doing. Each discount type pushes a different behaviour:

• Clear specific stock: a product discount on one collection, tag or vendor.
• Raise the average order: volume tiers (“buy 3, save 15%”) or a cart goal (“spend $100, get 10% off”).
• Remove a reason to abandon the cart: free shipping over a threshold.
• Move a slow product alongside a popular one: Buy X Get Y.
• Be visible to new visitors: a simple, sitewide percentage that is easy to understand in one glance.

One clear main offer usually beats four overlapping ones. If you want variety, a pattern that works well is a headline offer for Black Friday (for example, 20% off outerwear) and a different mechanic for Cyber Monday (for example, free shipping over $60 plus a cart goal at $120).

Four weeks out: check the numbers

A deep discount needs extra volume just to stand still. Run the sum before you commit:

If that multiplier looks unrealistic for a product, use a smaller discount, a threshold-based offer, or leave the product out. While you are here:

• Exclude items already on sale so two reductions don't compound.
• Leave out products with thin margins or limited stock.
• If you sell to consumers in the EU, remember that announced reductions must show the lowest price from the 30 days before the reduction. Do not raise prices in the run-up to the sale. Our guide to the EU Omnibus lowest prior price explains the rule.

Two to three weeks out: build and schedule

Build every campaign well ahead and schedule it, so it goes live at midnight without anyone sitting at a laptop. In Discount Easy that means:

• Create each campaign with start and end dates. Separate campaigns for Black Friday and Cyber Monday are easier to measure afterwards.
• Choose automatic or code for each. The public headline offer is usually automatic; an early-access offer for your email list works well as a code. See automatic discounts vs discount codes for the trade-offs.
• Decide on stacking. Should a newsletter code combine with the sitewide sale? Set your discount combinations in Shopify accordingly; on the Pro plan you can block discount codes from stacking on a campaign.
• Check for overlaps. An evergreen “buy 3, save 15%” offer may still be running when Black Friday starts. On Pro, the calendar shows holidays and warns about overlapping campaigns, so you can pause or exclude before they collide.
• Mind your plan limits. The Free plan allows up to 3 live discounts at once, Basic up to 20 and Pro up to 100.

One week out: prepare the storefront

A discount that shoppers do not notice is just a lower price. Make the offer visible where decisions are made:

• Sale badges on discounted products and photo labels (a corner pill, ribbon or bar) on the product image.
• A countdown timer that counts to the real end of the campaign, not a timer that restarts for each visitor. More on that in countdown timers and sale badges that don't feel spammy.
• A cart goals bar if your offer has a spend threshold, so shoppers can see how far they are from it.
• Tier tables on product pages if you run volume tiers.

Discount Easy includes ready-made styles for Black Friday and Cyber Monday (four styles for each occasion) that restyle the badges, timers, tier tables and cart bar together, so the whole storefront matches. Make sure your homepage banner and announcement bar say exactly the same thing as the discount rules.

Two days out: test like a customer

Schedule a short test campaign on a single product, or preview on a development theme, and go through the purchase as a shopper would:

• Add a qualifying product and check the price on the product page, in the cart and at checkout.
• Add an excluded product and confirm it stays at full price.
• Try your discount codes on their own and on top of the automatic offer.
• Move the cart value just below and just above each threshold and watch the cart goals bar.
• Check free shipping for each country where it should, and should not, apply.
• Repeat the whole thing on a phone.

During the weekend

• Check the storefront when each campaign starts and ends.
• Keep a short log of any change you make, with the time. You will want it when reading the results.
• Avoid changing the rules halfway through unless something is broken. Shoppers notice when an offer changes under them.

The week after

• Confirm every campaign has ended and the timers and badges are gone.
• Compare revenue, orders and average order value per campaign. On paid plans Discount Easy shows these in its analytics and exports them to CSV.
• Write down what you would change next year while it is fresh: offer, timing, exclusions, styling.
• Switch the storefront style to your next occasion, such as Christmas.

Summary

• Black Friday 2026 is November 27 and Cyber Monday is November 30. Decide your window early.
• Choose one main offer per campaign, based on what you want shoppers to do.
• Check how much extra volume a discount needs before committing to it.
• Build and schedule ahead, decide on stacking, and check for overlaps with running offers.
• Make the offer visible, test like a customer, and review the numbers per campaign afterwards.

FAQ