Shopify Black Friday checklist 2026: a week-by-week plan to Cyber Monday and beyond

Black Friday 2026 is Friday 27 November and Cyber Monday is Monday 30 November. That leaves six weeks from today to get a Shopify store ready. This Shopify Black Friday checklist splits the work by week, starting with apps and theme, then discounts and shipping, then a freeze, the weekend itself, and the returns and gift card redemptions that land in December and January.

Shopify says its merchants sold 14.6 billion USD over BFCM 2025, up 27% on 2024, with sales peaking at 5.1 million USD per minute at 12:01 pm EST on Black Friday. Adobe measured 44.2 billion USD of US online spending over Cyber Week 2025, and Salesforce put global Cyber Week sales at 336.6 billion USD.

BFCM 2026 key dates

Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday of November, so the dates move every year. In 2026 Cyber Monday is only 25 days before Christmas, which leaves December a short runway.

Week of 19 October: audit apps and theme before the freeze

Start with what can break. Shopify carries the traffic, so the usual Black Friday incident is an app that stopped working, an untested theme edit, or a tracking pixel that vanished.

Two Shopify deadlines sit right after the season. From 1 January 2027 public apps must use expiring access tokens, and on 1 March 2027 script tags stop loading on the online store. Since 1 October 2026 apps can no longer create new script tags at all. Our Shopify deprecations 2026-2027 guide explains how to find script tags in your page source. Do that audit now, because you do not want to be swapping apps in December.

Then check speed. Shopify's web performance dashboard shows Core Web Vitals from real visitors over the past 30 days on the Themes page. Shopify rates LCP as good at 2.5 seconds or less, INP at 200 ms or less and CLS at 0.1 or less. Each app that adds storefront code is a candidate for removal if you no longer use it.

Finally, duplicate your live theme. If Black Friday morning goes wrong, you publish the copy in a minute.

Week of 26 October: plan your Shopify Black Friday discount

Decide the offer before you build it. Then choose between automatic discounts and codes:

• Automatic discounts apply without the customer typing anything, which suits a store-wide sale. Shopify allows a maximum of 25 active automatic discounts, including app-based ones.
• Codes suit email and SMS lists, influencers and tiered offers. A customer can use up to 5 product or order codes and 1 shipping code on one order.

Combinations are where stores lose margin. According to Shopify's combination rules, all stores can combine product discounts with free shipping, order discounts with free shipping, and product discounts on different items. Combining product discounts with order discounts, or order discounts with each other, is only available to eligible stores. Shipping discounts never stack. Product discounts apply first, then order discounts on the new subtotal, then shipping. When two discounts can't combine, Shopify gives the customer the better one.

Write down every discount you plan to run with its combination settings, and test the worst case, which is your biggest code on top of your automatic sale on top of free shipping. Set start and end dates on every discount now, so nothing depends on someone being awake at midnight.

Week of 2 November: Shopify holiday settings for shipping, stock and returns

There is no single "holiday mode" in Shopify. The Shopify holiday settings that matter are spread across the admin.

Delivery dates. Under Settings, Shipping and delivery, Shopify can show estimated delivery dates at checkout instead of transit times. It adds your fulfilment time to the carrier's transit time, with a business-day cutoff of 12 pm in the time zone of the shipping origin. It works with flat rates that have a transit time and with some carrier-calculated rates, but not with rates from third-party apps. If your warehouse slows down in late November, raise the fulfilment time here so the dates customers see stay honest.

Stock. Check which products have "Continue selling when out of stock" turned on. It is set per product or variant and only works when inventory is tracked (Shopify help). One forgotten tick on a bestseller during a 48-hour sale means overselling stock you cannot ship.

Returns. Holiday returns are high. The NRF expected 17% of holiday sales to be returned in 2025, and 19.3% of online sales across the year. In Settings, Policies, Shopify's return rules let you choose 14, 30 or 90 days, unlimited, or a custom number of days, plus overrides for specific collections or products. A 60-day window from now until January covers gifts bought on Black Friday. Our sibling article on Shopify return fees compared covers return shipping and restocking fees. That article also notes that from 23 October 2026, return shipping fees may be taxed on US orders for stores using Shopify Tax.

Week of 9 November: gift cards and size charts

Two features pay off well after the weekend itself.

Gift cards. A gift card is the last-minute present that never misses a shipping cutoff, so it keeps selling until 24 December. Shopify lets you discount gift card products directly, for example a 100 USD card for 80 USD. Collection-wide discounts don't apply to gift cards in that collection, so target the gift card product. A bonus card ("spend 100, get a 20 card for January") is the other common offer; it brings the customer back after the rush. Our gift card vs store credit guide explains which tool fits which offer, and check gift card expiration laws before you put an expiry on a promotional card.

GiftmintGift cards with emails that carry your logo, delivery on the day the buyer picks and a balance check in your store.See how it works

Native Shopify gift cards are emailed with Shopify's notification template. We built Giftmint for the gaps. Buyers pick a design, write a message and choose the delivery day, the card arrives at 9:00 on Christmas morning with your logo, and customers can check their balance on your store. It has a free plan with 50 cards a month and no fee per order. Rise also offers loyalty and cashback, which we don't, and our gift card app comparison lays out what each one charges. Setup takes about five minutes with the theme guide.

Size charts. Clothing and shoes bought as gifts come back for size more than anything else, because the buyer is guessing someone else's size. A clear chart with measuring steps on every product page is the cheapest fix. Our clothing size conversion chart has the US, UK and EU tables, and the size chart app comparison covers Kiwi, Avada and our own Plainfee, which shows each shopper their own country's sizes first, has a free plan with 3 charts and costs a flat 14.99 USD a month for unlimited charts. Kiwi has a fit recommender, which we don't. If your tables live in a spreadsheet, paste them from Excel this week, not on 25 November.

Week of 16 November: emails, support and the code freeze

Schedule the email and SMS calendar now. Plan an early access email to subscribers (around 23 November), the launch on the morning of 27 November, a weekend reminder, a Cyber Monday email on 30 November and a "last day" email that night.

Prepare customer service replies. Shopify Inbox has quick replies that you trigger with a one-word shortcut. Write 8 to 10: where is my order, delivery dates, return window, how to use a discount code, gift card balance, size exchange, discount not applied, and out of stock.

Freeze on Friday 20 November. After that, no new apps, no theme edits and no checkout changes unless something is broken. Place a real test order with a discount code, a gift card and each payment method, including Shop Pay, which handled 32% of Shopify's BFCM 2025 orders.

BFCM weekend: 27 to 30 November

The best Shopify Black Friday checklist item for the weekend is to keep it boring. Watch Analytics, Live View, for traffic and orders, and check your payment provider dashboard for declines. Have one person watching the support inbox in each time zone you sell to. If a discount misbehaves, edit or end it rather than installing something new. Adobe reported that mobile made up 57.5% of Cyber Monday 2025 spending, so check your own checkout on a phone on Friday morning.

After BFCM: December and January

December is gift card season. Post the last date for delivery before Christmas once your carriers publish theirs, then push gift cards for anyone who missed it.

January is returns and redemption. Customers come back with gift cards and with exchanges. Make sure staff know your extended return window, and treat a size exchange as a chance to keep the sale. Then review the numbers in Analytics, Reports: sales by discount code, return rate by product, and how many gift cards sold in December were spent by 31 January. Products with high size returns are the first ones to fix before next year.

Printable Shopify Black Friday checklist

Week of 19 October

• List every installed app and remove the ones you no longer use.
• Search your page source for var urls and confirm each app works after 1 March 2027.
• Check Core Web Vitals on the Themes page.
• Duplicate the live theme as a backup.

Week of 26 October

• Decide the offer and margin floor.
• Build discounts with combination settings and start and end dates.
• Test the worst-case stack of discounts at checkout.

Week of 2 November

• Turn on estimated delivery dates and set a realistic fulfilment time.
• Review "Continue selling when out of stock" on bestsellers.
• Extend the return window for holiday purchases and update the policy page.

Week of 9 November

• Set up gift card amounts, recipient emails and any gift card discount.
• Add size charts with measuring steps to clothing and shoes.

Week of 16 November

• Schedule emails and SMS for 23, 27 and 30 November.
• Write quick replies for support.
• Place test orders with every payment method.
• Freeze apps, theme and checkout on 20 November.

27 to 30 November

• Monitor Live View, payments and the support inbox.

December and January

• Publish Christmas delivery cutoffs and promote gift cards after them.
• Brief staff on the holiday return window.
• Review discount, return and gift card reports by 31 January.
• Re-check apps on 2 January and 2 March 2027.

Frequently asked questions