Black Friday ecommerce

Shopify's 25-step Black Friday checklist, the New Zealand take!

Shopify has published a 25-step Black Friday checklist, and it's thorough. It's also written for American stores with months to plan. Here's the part we'd actually do this week, and the part we'd happily leave for next year.

Shopify has published a 25-step Black Friday checklist, and it's thorough. It's also written for American stores with months to plan. With three weeks to go until Black Friday on 27 November, here's the part we'd actually do this week, and the part we'd happily leave for next year.

Is Shopify's checklist worth reading?

Yes, but skim it. The full checklist is a 22-minute read covering offers, checkout, shipping, support and what to review afterwards. Some of it is about US rules and payment options that don't apply here.

The reason to take it seriously is the size of the weekend. Shopify says its merchants sold US$14.6 billion over Black Friday weekend last year, up 24% once currency swings are taken out. More than 94,900 stores had their best day ever. Those are Shopify's own global figures and it calls them unaudited, but the direction is clear. For a lot of small stores, this is the busiest weekend of the year.

Our advice is to read the testing and shipping sections closely and skim the rest.

Which checks should I run this week?

The boring ones. They take an hour, cost nothing and catch the problems that are hardest to fix once the sale is live. These are straight from Shopify's list, and we'd do every one:

Try your Black Friday discount code at checkout, and check any automatic discount applies on its own.
Make sure abandoned checkout emails are switched on. In your admin, go to Apps, then Messaging, then Automations. Then start a checkout yourself, leave it, and see if the email arrives.
Place a real order for your cheapest product and check the confirmation email comes through. Fulfil it and check the shipping email too, then refund it. The card fee usually isn't returned, so keep it small.
Send a message through your contact form and make sure it lands in an inbox someone actually reads.

Do these on your phone as well as your laptop. Adobe found smartphones made up 56.4% of online holiday purchases last year. That's US data, but we'd assume most of your Black Friday shoppers are on a phone too.

While you're in checkout, look at the web address. It should be your own domain or a Shopify one. After October's app problems, it's a good habit.

Shopify also suggests removing apps you don't use. We agree. Every app you remove is one less thing to slow your store down or go wrong on the busiest day of the year.

What makes shoppers give up at checkout?

Surprise costs, mostly. Baymard Institute, which researches online checkouts, found that 39% of shoppers who had abandoned an order did so because of extra costs they didn't expect. That's mainly a US survey, but the lesson travels.

For New Zealand stores the usual surprise is delivery. A rural delivery charge or a Waiheke surcharge that only appears at the last step is a quiet sale-killer. We'd show your delivery costs on product pages or from a link in your announcement bar, so nobody finds out at the end.

Timing matters as much as price. Narvar, a delivery tracking company, says shoppers rate an accurate delivery date above a cheap one. From late November, most people buying from you are wondering one thing: will it arrive before Christmas? Check your courier's Christmas cut-off dates now and put your own "order by" date somewhere obvious. Then stick to it.

What can I leave until next year?

Quite a lot, and that's fine. Shopify's list includes selling internationally, setting up new sales channels, launching a loyalty programme and holding pop-up shops. Those are all good ideas with months of lead time. Three weeks out, they're more likely to cause problems than sales.

We'd also leave big design changes alone. Shopify has launched Canvas, a new design workspace where you can edit your store with its AI assistant. Archetype Themes, which makes several popular themes, told its customers this week that Canvas doesn't yet work with app extensions or premium themes. It recommends waiting until after Black Friday. We'd say the same about any redesign. Try new things in January, when a mistake costs you less.

What should I do once it's over?

Write down what happened, while you still remember. Shopify's last step is to review what worked, and it's the one most stores skip. We'd note which offers sold, which products ran out, and which questions customers kept asking. Those notes are the best plan you'll have for next November.

If you'd like a hand running through these checks before the rush, get in touch and we'll take a look. Most of them, though, you can do yourself this afternoon.