Start eight weeks ahead.
Black Friday 2026 falls on Friday, November 27, so preparation starts in early October. What takes time are the decisions about the offer, and inventory has often already been decided without you.
The benchmark
| Deadline | What must be decided |
|---|---|
| 8 weeks out, early October | The offer, the products included, available inventory, the margin target |
| 6 weeks out | Campaign pages, discount rules, email capture |
| 4 weeks out | The announcement to subscribers, discount and tracking tests |
| Mid-November | The site freeze: nothing gets deployed, except to remove what breaks |
This timeline only covers the site, because inventory was decided well before.
At a winter accessories brand the authors work with, with a few million euros in online revenue, two flagship colors ended the winter with several thousand units on the shelf, while three sought-after colors were out of stock for nearly a month between December and February.
The demand was there. The split by color was settled at the factory order, in the summer, and no one could fix it anymore. In October, what's left to decide is what to do with the inventory you have.
The rule
Decide the offer before the mechanics, and plan around all of November and December rather than four days.
A project lead on one of the teams behind this article says it every June, because the years it was skipped showed in November:
“By mid-July, we need to talk to the client about it, and they get back to us in August. In September, we test all of it, and in October-November we're relaxed. And so, in September, we think about Christmas.”
The steps
- The margin target. At a brand the authors work with, the previous Black Friday had brought +24% transactions, −17% average order value and +3% sales: more orders, barely more revenue and a squeezed margin.
- The offer. Choose it based on real inventory, with reference prices verified over the previous thirty days.
- The subscriber list. Build it in October, because a brand that starts in November can only talk to the audience it already has.
- Pages, discounts and tracking. Test them before mid-November, then freeze.
- The game-day runbook. Write down who publishes, who monitors and who has the right to stop everything.
A sentence to say to your leadership on October 1, to adapt with your own dates and words:
“The November 27 offer is decided by the 15th. After that, we only discuss execution.”
The trap
The classic trap is picking your discount in the last week, by looking at what competitors are doing.
You match a margin you know nothing about. Also keep in mind that some Black Friday sales are December sales pulled forward and discounted.
A good Friday followed by an empty December amounts to selling the same items with an extra discount.
