How to Prepare Your eCommerce Strategy for Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2026

Help Shoppers Discover Your Products Through AI

AI assistants can play a role as soon as someone starts looking for a product, before they ever visit your website. For retailers, preparing for this shift includes making products and offers easier to interpret and compare.

• Provide the details that guide purchase decisions: Dimensions, materials, use cases, variants, and compatibility information should help shoppers distinguish between products and find answers to their questions.
• Make your promotions clear: Specify eligible products, promotional prices, offer dates, and exclusions. Make shipping and return policies easy to find as well.
• Check for consistency across channels: Compare your product pages, promotional landing pages, and information shared through other channels. Resolve pricing or availability discrepancies before launching your campaigns.

Clear product data makes information easier for AI systems to use, while helping customers evaluate your offers and your team provide consistent answers.

Plan Promotions That Support Sales and Profitability

Start by defining what you want your promotion to achieve. Are you looking to clear specific inventory, encourage a first purchase, or increase average order value? Then choose a promotional approach that fits your objective and your margins.

Bundles of complementary products, gifts with purchase, and early access for loyal customers can all be relevant options. Cross-selling should offer a useful addition to the selected product, with a benefit that is easy to understand.

Consider your campaign’s duration in relation to your order fulfillment capacity. Early access or a staggered promotional calendar can help spread out demand. Make sure offer terms remain consistent across your website, stores, and communications.

Get Your Platform and Operations Ready for Peak Demand

Before driving more traffic to your website, make sure navigation, page load speed, discounts, and checkout work properly, especially on mobile. Confirm that inventory information, shipping costs, and delivery timelines are easy to find. Prepare your customer service team to answer questions about offers and returns. These checks connect your marketing campaign with your business’s operational capacity.

BFCM preparation also includes managing suspicious orders and chargebacks. Review your fraud detection tools and your team’s order review process. Establish who handles alerts and how cases should be escalated for further review. The goal is to apply appropriate checks to high-risk transactions while minimizing unwarranted declines for legitimate customers.

Coordinate Your BFCM Communications

Plan your communications to guide customers throughout your campaign, from discovering your offers to receiving final reminders before they end. Keep your tone consistent with your brand and tailor your messages to shopping behaviors and the interest customers have shown in your products.

• Make your approach to Black Friday clear: Whether you focus on discounts, mindful consumption, or support for a cause, explain your choice and make sure it reflects your brand’s values.
• Make the value of your offers tangible: Depending on the product, a dollar amount saved or a final price may be more meaningful than a percentage discount. Choose the presentation that makes the offer easiest to understand.
• Pay close attention to email subject lines and preview text: Communicate a clear benefit and use these elements to complement each other, without overloading them with capital letters or emojis.
• Maintain a dedicated BFCM page: Reuse the same URL each year and update the offers, visuals, and terms to give your campaigns a consistent destination.

Black Friday preparation benefits from coordination across marketing, eCommerce, customer service, and operations teams. Bring priority actions together in one plan, assign responsibilities, and test the entire customer journey before launch. This unified commerce approach connects your campaigns with the experience customers actually receive.

Bonus: Bring Customers Together Around a Cause on Giving Tuesday

Giving Tuesday takes place on the Tuesday after Cyber Monday and is dedicated to generosity. For businesses, it is an opportunity to support a nonprofit organization and invite customers to contribute to a cause that reflects their values.

There are several ways to participate: donate a set amount for every eligible product sold, contribute a percentage of the day’s sales, or match donations collected at checkout.

Keep this communication separate from your promotions and clearly explain the initiative: the beneficiary organization, how contributions work, and the duration of your commitment. After the event, share the results and thank your customers for taking part.

Interested in discussing this with an eCommerce expert?

Our specialists are here to help you identify the best growth opportunities for your online store.

Pierre-Olivier Brassard

Vice President - Products and Technology, Partner

contact@novatize.com+1 844 932-6682

Book an appointment