Let’s be real for a second: Black Friday can be a nightmare.
If you’ve been in e-commerce for a while, you know the feeling. The sales are great, but the logistics? Absolute chaos.
In this post (and the video below), I want to walk you through exactly how we handled Black Friday this year for our food/snack store, Crackers. We made some major changes based on a pretty disastrous experience last year, and the results were exactly what we hoped for: higher profits, happier customers, and a warehouse team that didn't want to quit.
The ghost of Black Friday past
To understand why we changed our strategy, you have to look at what happened last year.
Honestly? It was crazy. And not in a good way. We had way too many orders come in all at once – more than our warehouse could physically handle. It got so bad that two days before Black Friday (on Wednesday), we actually had to pause all our Meta ads.
For a marketer, having to turn off ads during the biggest shopping week of the year is painful. It meant a significant loss in potential revenue. But the bigger problem was the quality of that revenue. We were selling too many orders with a razor-thin margin. We were busy, but we weren't as profitable as we should have been.
The new strategy: Margins & timing
This year, we had two main goals:
- Protect the margin: Stop giving away site-wide discounts that eat into profits.
- Spread the load: Extend the sales period to avoid the logistical bottleneck.
We decided to launch early – around the middle of November (Nov 15th) – and keep the momentum going until early December.
The results (the numbers don't lie)
Using our internal reporting tool Profit Analytics, we saw exactly what we wanted:
- Two sales spikes: We had a massive spike on launch day (Nov 15) and another push at the end of the month (Nov 30).
- Managed flow: Instead of one day of hell, the order volume was high but steady across two weeks. This meant our fulfillment team handled everything without delays.
- Healthy margins: While our contribution margin dipped slightly (as expected with any sale), it didn't crash. We maintained a healthy profit throughout the campaign.
How we executed the offer (the 3 USPs)
We didn't do a lazy "20% off everything." Instead, we built a dedicated landing page focused on three specific value propositions:
1. Free shipping (with a twist)
We shouted "Free Shipping" everywhere. But here’s the trick: we didn't offer it on every carrier. We selected the one carrier that gave us the best rates and conditions. The premium carriers were still paid. This kept our costs down while still offering a great perk.
2. Free gift with purchase ($20+ threshold)
We offered a free bag of crackers if the customer spent over 400 CZK (approx. $20).
Why? To kill the single-product orders. Small orders are a logistical pain and often unprofitable. This incentive pushed our AOV up significantly.
3. The bundle (the real discount)
This was the only place we gave a deep discount (about 24-25%). We created a specific "Best of" bundle and marketed it as a limited-stock Black Friday exclusive. This drove urgency without devaluing our entire catalog.
The tech stack & tactics
Site communication
We made sure no one missed the offer.
- Header bar: We used a scrolling notification bar site-wide.
- Gift Box widget: We used our Gift Box app to clearly display the free gift progress, gamifying the shopping experience.
The "Shopify Plus" hack
Here is a tip for those of you on standard Shopify plans. Shopify often offers a discounted trial of Shopify Plus for $399 per month (the price of Shopify Advanced plan) for 2 months.
We took this trial at the start of November. Why?
- Checkout extensibility: It allowed us to customize the checkout with upsell offers (for products) and trust elements.
- Lower fees: The transaction fees on Plus are lower, which adds up during high-volume months like November. Use our Shopify fees calculator to see how much you can save.
Email marketing (plain text wins)
We used Klaviyo to send one email per day, ramping up to two near the deadline. We A/B tested beautifully designed HTML emails against simple, plain-text emails.
The result? Plain text actually performed better. Sometimes, stripped-back authenticity beats flashy design.
Meta ads & UGC
We ran static ads that visually matched our landing page (black and yellow branding) to keep the journey consistent. We also leaned heavily into user-generated content (UGC) videos to explain the bundle offer, which performed really well.
The takeaway
Black Friday doesn't have to be a race to the bottom on price. By bundling products, incentivizing higher order values with gifts, and spreading the demand over two weeks, we turned a stressful event into a profitable, manageable month.
We’re taking these learnings into our end-of-year campaigns now. Hopefully, this gives you some ideas for your next major sale event.
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