Black Friday is on 27 November. Here's my friendly checklist to get your Shopify store ready, including the new Shopify features that make it easier.
Right then, it's that time of year again. Black Friday lands on Friday 27 November this year, with Cyber Monday hot on its heels on the 30th. If you run a Shopify store, the next few weeks are your chance to get everything sorted before the madness starts, rather than frantically fixing things at 11pm on the Thursday night (we've all been there).
The good news is Shopify has been busy this year. A load of the updates in the Shopify changelog make Black Friday a whole lot easier, and most store owners haven't spotted them yet. So I've pulled together my checklist of what to do, with the new bits flagged so you can make the most of them.
Grab a cuppa and work through it. You don't have to do it all in one go.
This is my favourite one. Shopify's Rollouts let you plan and schedule changes to your store ahead of time, including your theme changes and your discounts, and even test them before they go live.
In plain English, that means you can build your Black Friday homepage, banner and discounts this week, check they all look right, and set them to switch on by themselves. No more staying up until midnight to press a button, and no more forgetting to switch the sale off again on Tuesday morning.
Shopify now lets more than one product discount apply to the same item, which used to be a real headache. So if you're running a sitewide 20% off and want to stack a loyalty discount or a bundle deal on top, you can, without needing an app or a clever workaround.
Just be careful. Stacking is brilliant until you accidentally give away 60% off your bestseller. Do a few test orders with different combinations before the big day so you know exactly what customers will pay.
It's also worth knowing that minimum and maximum order values are now on every plan. That's handy for a "spend £50, get free delivery" offer, or for stopping one person buying every single one of your limited-edition products.
Black Friday shoppers are impatient. They're on their phone, they've got five tabs open and they're comparing you with three other shops. Every extra tap at checkout is a chance for them to wander off.
Shopify has made a few small but really useful changes here this year:
While you're in there, double check that Shop Pay, Apple Pay and Google Pay are all switched on. Then place a test order on your own phone, from start to finish, like a customer would. You'll be surprised what you spot.
This one's a big win for UK shops. Customers can now choose a Royal Mail or Post Office pickup point right at checkout. For anyone who's out at work all day, that's a much better option than a missed delivery card and a trip to the sorting office.
Shoppers are more nervous about buying from a smaller brand on Black Friday, and a clear returns policy goes a long way to putting their mind at rest.
You can now set different return windows for different products or collections. So you can keep a generous returns policy on most things while protecting sale items, personalised products or anything made to order.
And if your policies are a bit, erm, out of date (no judgement), Shopify can now generate your store policies for you. Give them a read through and tweak them to suit, but it's a great starting point. It also helps with Google Merchant Center, which likes to see clear policies before it'll show your products in Google Shopping.
The best problem to have is too many orders. The worst way to deal with it is packing them one at a time until 2am.
Loads of people will add things to their basket and then get distracted. That's normal, especially on Black Friday. Make sure your abandoned cart emails are switched on and actually sound like you, not a robot.
Shopify has also been adding SMS and WhatsApp marketing options this year. If your customers are the type who'd rather get a quick message than an email, it's well worth a look. Just don't go overboard. Nobody wants six texts in one day!
You can now set targets and add notes in Shopify Analytics. Set yourself a goal for the weekend so you know how you're doing, and leave notes on the days things spike ("sent the email", "posted the reel", "influencer shared it").
Next year, you'll thank yourself, because you'll know exactly what worked and what didn't.
The week before, run through these quickly:
If you've read this and thought "I haven't got time for all that", you're not alone, and that's exactly what I'm here for. I'm a Cheshire-based Shopify Partner with nearly 10 years' experience, and I help UK brands get their stores fast, sorted and ready to sell.
Whether it's scheduling your sale, speeding up your checkout, or a bigger job like a Shopify design and build or moving your store over to Shopify, drop me a message and let's have a chat.
Good luck with the big weekend. I hope your notifications don't stop pinging!
Go well!
