THE CLUB PLAYBOOK 21 DAYS TO BLACK FRIDAY
25% OFF CAN COST YOU HALF YOUR PROFIT. HERE'S THE MATH.
Before you lock in your Black Friday discount, spend five minutes on this. It might change your offer.
Most stores pick their BFCM discount by looking at what everyone else is doing. 20% off. 30% off. Sitewide. But a discount doesn't come off your revenue, it comes off your profit, and that is a much smaller number. Below: a worked example, a five-minute margin check you can do today, and four offers that sell just as well without giving the farm away.
ONE CLICK BEFORE YOU SCROLL
WHERE ARE YOU WITH SHOPIFY?
Tap one. We'll send you more of what fits your stage.
Pick the one that fits you best:
01 THE WORKED EXAMPLE
A $60 PRODUCT, BEFORE AND AFTER 25% OFF.
Say you sell a $60 product. It costs you $24 to make or buy, and about $8 to pick, pack and ship. Payment processing takes roughly 3% plus 30¢.
At full price ($60): $60 − $24 − $8 − $2.04 in fees = $25.96 profit per order.
At 25% off ($45): $45 − $24 − $8 − $1.61 in fees = $11.39 profit per order.
The price dropped 25%. Your profit per order dropped 56%. To make the same money as a normal day, you need to sell about 2.3 times as many orders.
Now add advertising. If each Black Friday order costs you $10 in ads (and ad prices climb in November), full price leaves $15.96 and the 25% offer leaves $1.39. You'd need more than eleven times the orders just to stand still.
The takeaway: a discount isn't automatically bad. But you should know, before you launch it, how many extra orders it has to bring in to be worth it.
02 THE FIVE-MINUTE MARGIN CHECK
DO THIS FOR YOUR TOP 3 PRODUCTS TODAY.
Write down the price, your cost and your shipping cost for each one. Shopify can store cost per item on the product page (the "Cost per item" field), and it then shows profit for you.
Work out profit at full price: price − cost − shipping − about 3% in fees.
Work out profit at your planned discount the same way.
Divide the first number by the second. That's how many times your normal sales you need just to break even on the offer. Under 1.5x is comfortable. Over 2x, think hard. If profit at the discount is zero or negative, change the offer.
Subtract your expected ad cost per order if you're running paid ads, and do steps 3 and 4 again.
If you only have time for one thing from this email, do this one.
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03 OFFERS THAT PROTECT YOUR MARGIN
FOUR WAYS TO MAKE BLACK FRIDAY FEEL BIG WITHOUT 30% OFF.
Same $60 product, same costs as above. Profit per order in brackets where we can work it out.
Gift with purchase ($21.96). Add a small product that costs you $4 but is worth $15–20 to the customer. It feels generous and protects most of your profit. Great for clearing slow stock too.
Bundle and save ($40.74 on a 2-pack). "Buy 2, save 15%" at $102 for two, and they ship together for about $10. One shipment instead of two means a bigger order and more profit than a single full-price sale, even after the discount.
Spend more, save more. "$15 off orders over $100" only kicks in when the order is big enough to absorb it. Set the threshold about 20–30% above your current average order value.
Free shipping over a threshold. Customers love it, and you only pay for it on bigger orders. Make sure the threshold matches everywhere: banner, product page, policy and checkout.
You can mix these. A tiered "spend $75, get a gift; spend $125, get the gift plus free shipping" offer moves order value without touching your price at all.
04 PICK BY STAGE
WHAT TO RUN, DEPENDING ON WHERE YOU ARE.
Just starting (few or no sales yet): keep it simple. One clear offer, like free shipping over a threshold or a small gift. Your goal this year is first customers and email signups, not volume.
Growing (steady sales, figuring it out): run the margin check above, then try a bundle or a tiered offer. Email your list first, before you spend on ads.
Established (steady revenue, maybe a team): segment it. Give your best customers early access or a better offer, and keep deep discounts away from people who'd buy at full price anyway.
Not sure which one you are? That's what the one-click poll at the top is for, and it's how we'll send you more of the right stuff.
05 YOUR 21-DAY COUNTDOWN
THREE WEEKS LEFT. HERE'S HOW TO SPEND THEM.
Black Friday is Friday, November 27. Cyber Monday is November 30. Work backwards from there:
This week (Nov 6 to 13): decide. Run the margin check, pick your offer and build it in Shopify with a start and end date. Order any gift-with-purchase stock now.
Next week (Nov 14 to 20): write. Draft and schedule your emails: a teaser, an early-access note for past customers, launch day, a reminder and a last-chance send. Update your banners and product pages.
Thanksgiving week (Nov 21 to 26): test and freeze. Place a real test order with the discount, check every shipping message matches, then stop making theme changes. Nothing new goes live the week of the sale.
Nov 27 to 30: run it. Watch orders and stock, answer customer emails fast and save every number for next year.
COOL APP OF THE WEEK FREE
SHOPIFY BUNDLES: THE "BUY 2, SAVE 15%" OFFER, BUILT IN 10 MINUTES.
Remember the bundle in section 03 that made more profit than a full-price sale? This is how you build it. Shopify Bundles is Shopify's own app, it's free on every plan, and it runs right inside your admin.
Fixed bundles: sell a set of different products together, like a starter kit or a gift set, at one price.
Multipacks: sell 2 or 3 of the same product as its own listing, like a 2-pack at a better price.
Inventory stays in sync: when a bundle sells, stock comes off each product inside it, so you don't oversell on your busiest weekend.
Good to know: it doesn't do mix-and-match or build-your-own boxes. If you need those, you'll want a paid bundle app. For a simple Black Friday gift set or 2-pack, this is all you need.
Try this: make a 2-pack of your best-seller, price it at 15% off two singles, and run it through the margin check before you publish it.
WEEKEND HOMEWORK
THREE JOBS BEFORE MONDAY.
Fill in "Cost per item" on your top 10 products so Shopify can show you real profit.
Run the five-minute margin check on your top 3 and decide your offer.
Build the discount in Shopify now, give it a start and end date, and test it with a real order.
FROM THE CLUB TOOLS WE SELL
SKIP THE BLANK PAGE. USE OUR KIT.
Everything in this email, laid out as worksheets and templates you can fill in this weekend.
BFCM Launch Kit 2026 ($29 USD): the 4-week countdown to November 27, with an offer picker, the margin worksheet from this email, a 7-email plan and a launch-day checklist.
The AOV Playbook ($24 USD): 12 plays for bigger orders, including the bundles, gift tiers and free-shipping thresholds from section 03.
Shopify Flow Recipes ($24 USD): 20 no-code automations, including low-stock alerts and fraud holds for a busy weekend.
Product Page Copy Kit ($19 USD): rewrite your best-sellers' product pages before the traffic arrives.
FREE FROM THE CLUB
TWO FREE TOOLS, IF YOU NEED THEM.
Free store audit: put in your store URL and get a scored report on the leaks that cost sales, from mismatched shipping messages to sold-out products with no way to get notified.
Just getting started? Our free course walks you through building a Shopify store step by step, at your own pace.
WORK WITH THE CLUB
WANT A SECOND PAIR OF EYES ON YOUR OFFER?
The team behind the Club builds and fixes Shopify stores for a living. Before Black Friday we can check your offer math, set up bundles, gifts and tiered discounts properly, and fix the leaks on your store so the traffic you pay for actually converts.
Tell us what you're working on and we'll get back to you within two business days.
LESS NOISE. BETTER ECOMMERCE.
Reply and tell us your Black Friday offer. We read every one. See you next week.
Want a hand getting your store BFCM-ready?
