- Those are the people who are going to repeat buy from you
- It's expensive to be trying to reach brand new customers around that time
- It's noisy. Everyone is advertising at once, and CPMs (what you pay to get your ad in front of 1,000 people) go up
So the plan starts well before November. This is how you can build up to Black Friday with a bang.
Where Black Friday sits in your year
Black Friday goes so much better when it's one stop in a yearly rhythm. This is the rhythm I teach:
| When | What you're doing |
|---|---|
| Jun to Aug | A final mid-year sale: friends and family, a mystery box or a semi-clearance |
| Jun to Sep | As many top-of-funnel collabs and partnerships as you can, plus giveaways |
| Sep or Oct | Launch something* |
| Oct | The final push on new audiences, and nurturing the people you've already got |
| Nov | Run your sales (see the week-by-week breakdown below) |
| Dec | Gifting: a gifting collection, gift cards, a bit of free shipping, and Boxing Day sales in Australia and Canada |
| Jan or Feb | A new offer: something charitable, new bundles or a product launch |
*"Launch something" in September or October could be:
- A new product
- A collab with another brand
- Your Christmas gift sets
- New bundles of your current products
It doesn't have to be a full investment in a new product if you don't have one coming. You can get creative with it!
So if it's October and the sale isn't built yet, you're right on time. October is for filling the funnel and getting your best offers ready.
Your week-by-week holiday calendar, October to January
The dates are for 2026. The offers are a starting stack, so swap in whatever suits your brand, your stock and how many hands you've got.
| Week | Dates to know | What's happening |
|---|---|---|
| 5 to 11 Oct | Pull last year's sale numbers, pick your offers and run the margin check below | |
| 12 to 18 Oct | Open an early access list and share it everywhere: pop-up, bio link, emails | |
| 19 to 25 Oct | Keep reaching NEW people (ads, collabs, a giveaway) and confirm stock on the products your offers lean on | |
| 26 Oct to 1 Nov | Click Frenzy (AU) Tue 27 to Fri 30 Oct | Finalize all of your marketing for your upcoming campaigns |
| 2 to 8 Nov | Teasers go out. Tell your list what's coming and when | |
| 9 to 15 Nov | Singles' Day Wed 11 Nov | Last call for the early access list |
| 16 to 22 Nov | Early access for your list first, then your main offer goes public | |
| 23 to 29 Nov | Thanksgiving Thu 26 Nov · Black Friday Fri 27 Nov · Small Business Saturday Sat 28 Nov | Main offer PLUS something on top: a gift with purchase, random order refunds or golden tickets in orders |
| 30 Nov to 6 Dec | Cyber Monday Mon 30 Nov · Giving Tuesday Tue 1 Dec · Hanukkah starts Fri 4 Dec | Last day of the main offer, then the switch to gifting: gift sets, bundles, a gift guide |
| 7 to 13 Dec | Hanukkah ends Sat 12 Dec | A limited edition drop or gift sets they can't get any other time |
| 14 to 20 Dec | Free shipping and last-minute gifts right up to your last order date for Christmas delivery | |
| 21 to 27 Dec | Christmas Fri 25 Dec · Boxing Day Sat 26 Dec (Australia and Canada) | Gift cards once your last order date passes, then your Boxing Day sale if that's your market |
| 28 Dec to 3 Jan | Boxing Day sale winds down | |
| January | A new offer: charitable, new bundles or a product launch |
A few of those dates might be new to you:
- Singles' Day (11 November) started in China and is often called the biggest shopping day in the world.
- Small Business Saturday (28 November) is the day after Black Friday in the US, all about shopping small.
- Giving Tuesday (1 December) is a global day of giving, and a natural home for a charitable offer.
You don't need to show up for every one of them. Pick the ones that make sense for your brand and your customers.
Don't forget about December
A lot of brands see a dip after Cyber Monday if they haven't planned for it properly, and December is where you keep the momentum going.
December is gifting. That means gift sets, bundles, gift cards, last-minute gifts and free shipping right up to your last order date, and it's a much bigger job than clearing whatever's left from November.
The Beyond the Discount report (DTC Newsletter and Smile.io, brands doing over $1M a year) found about half of brands, 49.6%, keep offers running from November through December. Shoppers are spread out too. Only 33.9% said Black Friday weekend is when they do their holiday shopping, 27.7% buy the second they see something they want, and 18.7% shop later, closer to the holidays.
The team at Portland Leather shared their own calendar in the Operators newsletter, and their December has three phases: newness from 1 to 12 Dec, shipping deadlines from 13 to 19 Dec, then telling people where they can still buy from 20 to 24 Dec. They're a much bigger brand with a heavier discount plan than I'd give you, but that December shape is worth borrowing. ✨
How to work out your last order date for Christmas delivery
Your carrier publishes a last send date for Christmas delivery on its own site. That's the day your parcel has to be in THEIR hands. Your customer needs a different date: the last day they can order.
Carrier's last send date, minus your packing days, minus one buffer day = your last order date.
Example (swap in your own numbers):
- Say your carrier's last send date is Thursday 17 December
- You need two working days to pick and pack, so that's Tuesday 15 and Wednesday 16
- Orders have to be in by the end of Monday 14 December
- Take off one buffer day for the order that goes wrong
- Your site says: Order by Sunday 13 December
Then put that date everywhere: a banner on every page, your product pages and your emails.
USPS calls its dates recommendations, so the buffer day is doing real work.
The margin check for every offer in your stack
How many MORE orders does each offer need to match a normal week? It depends on your margin and how deep you go:
| Your margin | 10% off | 20% off | 30% off |
|---|---|---|---|
| 40% | 1.3x the orders | 2x the orders | 4x the orders |
| 50% | 1.25x | 1.7x | 2.5x |
| 60% | 1.2x | 1.5x | 2x |
For anything that isn't a percent off, the sum is: your normal profit per order, divided by your profit per order with the offer. My offer calculator runs it for you.
Example: a $100 product that costs you $60 to land, so $40 profit on a normal day.
| Offer in the stack | What it costs you per order | Profit per order | Orders needed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Main offer, 20% off | $20 | $20 | 2x |
| 20% off plus a gift that costs you $6 | $26 | $14 | 2.9x |
| Limited edition drop at full price | $0 | $40 | 1x |
| Free shipping that costs you $8 | $8 | $32 | 1.25x |
Look at row two. A gift on top of a discount gets expensive fast, so I'd put that gift behind a minimum spend, or run it for the weekend only. And the December rows are the kindest to your margin, which is one more reason to plan December properly. 💸
If you're changing anything on your store before Black Friday
You can absolutely still change things if you need to. If you're launching something new, improving your conversion rate or improving the customer experience, go for it.
Just make sure it's not last minute, and test the crap out of it before it goes live: on your phone, on your laptop, all the way through checkout.
Cheering you on
I'm SO excited for your Black Friday, and I hope this shows you it's so much more than that five-day period.
One reminder to take with you: nothing's going to be perfect, and that's okay. Some stuff flops. Just learn and iterate.
Here's to your most profitable, most successful holiday season ever!