Jo sells preloved womenswear on Facebook Live and TikTok Live from Melbourne.
This is her second Black Friday since she opened her own online shop. She runs two or three lives a week, gets 80 to 150 claims a live, and her buyers pay by card or Afterpay (Clearpay in the UK) at checkout. (Jo is a composite of the sellers I talk to, not a real client.)
Black Friday brings more of everything: more viewers, more first-time buyers, and more people who claim a top in the excitement and go quiet when it’s time to pay.
Her old line still holds: “The live is two hours. The admin is two days.”
A bigger week makes both halves bigger.
Not selling live?
You don’t have to sell live for this checklist to work.
Mel sells vintage on Depop, Etsy and eBay as well as through her own shop. Carla runs a boutique in Austin with an online store alongside it. (They’re composites too.)
Each step has notes for lives, marketplaces and physical shops, so skip what doesn’t apply to you.
Black Friday is the Friday after US Thanksgiving, which falls on the fourth Thursday of November. Cyber Monday is the Monday after.
Three weeks of preparation is comfortable.
Only have a week? Start with the four steps below and treat the rest as a head start for next year.
Only have a week? Do these first
If you’re reading this the week before, these four steps prevent the problems that cost the most on the day.
Arguments over who claimed what. Payments that fail. Parcels that miss Christmas. Running out of mailers halfway through packing.
1. Write down your offer and your rules
Write one short note that answers the questions buyers ask:
- What’s on sale, and for how long
- How to claim or order
- How and when to pay
- What shipping costs, and when orders go out
On a live, save it as a pinned comment you can paste in seconds.
Why bother? Without written rules, every live turns into a negotiation.
Two buyers claim the same top, and both think it’s theirs. Someone pays three days later and expects the piece to still be waiting. Shipping questions fill your DMs while you’re trying to sell.
A pinned note gives you something to point to. You can say “it’s in the rules” instead of making a new call each time.
Here’s the same thing as a template. Copy it and fill in the brackets:
How this live works: 1. Comment [your claim word] and the item number to claim. First comment wins. 2. You'll get your tally by DM after the live. 3. Pay within [24 hours] of your tally, or the item goes to the next person. 4. Shipping is [$X] per order. Claims from [this weekend] ship together. 5. [Sale items can't be returned.] 6. All orders ship by [day].
Marketplaces and shops
Selling on marketplaces? Put the same points in your shop announcement and listing descriptions.
Running a physical shop? A sign by the till and a line on your website cover it.
2. Test how customers pay
Place a real order on your shop and pay for it. Then refund it.
It takes ten minutes and shows you exactly what a buyer sees: whether the card form loads, whether Afterpay appears, and whether the confirmation email arrives.
If buyers pay you by bank transfer, write your payment-details message now and save it, so it goes out in one tap. (There’s an example in the two-weeks section below.)
A checkout problem found today is a quick fix. Found during the sale, it means lost orders and a stream of “it won’t let me pay” messages.
3. Set your last order date for Christmas
Black Friday overlaps with Christmas shopping. In the National Retail Federation’s survey of US shoppers over Thanksgiving weekend, about two-thirds of what they spent went on gifts.
The first thing they ask is whether it will arrive in time.
Look up your carrier’s Christmas cut-off for the service you usually use. Then work back to the last day a customer can order and still get their parcel. The two-weeks section shows how.
4. Get your packing supplies and order log ready
Count your mailers, labels and printer ink against your biggest week so far. Then add some.
Set up one place to record every order or claim as it comes in: your shop’s order list, a spreadsheet, or a notebook by the till.
Running out of mailers on Saturday night, or rebuilding orders from memory on Monday, is how a good sale turns into a bad week.
That’s the minimum. The plan below spreads the rest across three weeks, and there’s a printable version at the end of this post.
Three weeks out: plan the sale
With three weeks to go, decide what the sale is before you work out how to run it.
Pick your sale dates
Black Friday only, the whole weekend, or Friday through Cyber Monday? On lives, that means one big live or several shorter ones.
Every extra sale day is another day of orders to pack and questions to answer the week after.
So pick the length you can ship, not just the length you can sell.
Choose an offer that protects your margin
Your margin is what you keep from a sale after the item’s cost.
A flat discount on everything is the easiest offer to run. It can also be the most expensive.
Say a top sells for $40 and cost you $12 to source. At 30% off, it sells for $28, and you keep $16 instead of $28.
Sell 50 tops that way and you’ve given away $600 to buyers who might have paid full price.
Offers that ask the buyer to do something can keep more of each sale, as the example below shows:
- A bundle, such as three pieces for a set price
- Free shipping over an amount a little above your average order
- A mystery-bag tier that moves slower stock
They reward buying more, instead of discounting every piece.
Whatever you choose, keep it simple enough to explain in one sentence on a live or a sign.
Sort, photograph and price your stock
Have everything ready before the first announcement, so you’re not photographing and pricing on the night.
If you sell one-of-a-kind pieces on lives, group them into price codes. For example, every piece tagged A is $25.
Buyers claim a code, and you don’t have to list every item. Here’s how price codes work with your own shop.
Keep one stock list for everywhere you sell
If you sell in more than one place, choose one list as the master copy. Update it the moment something sells.
Mel’s biggest Black Friday risk isn’t too few buyers. It’s selling the same jacket on Depop and in her own shop within the same hour, then having to cancel and apologise.
A piece sold at the counter or on a marketplace should come off your shop straight away.
Tell people the dates
Announce your sale dates wherever you sell, and email your customer list if you have one.
Give people time to plan for it. Returning buyers already know your sizing and your shipping, so they need less convincing.
Two weeks out: test payments and shipping
This is the week that saves the most stress on the day.
Run a real test order
Go through your shop as a buyer: add to cart, pay by card, pay with Afterpay if you offer it, and check the confirmation email arrives with the right details. Then refund the orders.
Do it on your phone too. In Contentsquare’s study of more than 1,600 websites, 77% of ecommerce visits came from mobile devices.
While you’re there, check the minimum and maximum order amounts for Afterpay or any other pay-later option. You don’t want a big bundle to fail at checkout for the buyers spending the most.
Stripe’s Afterpay limits for each market are in my guide to setting up credit card and Afterpay checkout.
Bank transfers: save your payment message and claim log
If buyers pay you by bank transfer, write the message you’ll send after each sale and save it.
Include the total, your account details, the payment reference you want them to use, and the deadline.
Then set up a claim log, so you can see at a glance who owes what. A simple table works:
| Buyer | Claimed | Total | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sam | A × 2, B × 1 | $74.50 | Paid (SAM-FRI) |
| Priya | C × 1 | $34.50 | Reminder sent |
| Alex | A × 1 | $34.50 | Released |
When a payment lands, the reference tells you whose it is. The log tells you whether it’s the full amount.
Tired of matching transfers by hand? Here’s what changes when live buyers pay on your own shop.
Confirm shipping rates and your combined-order rule
Decide what shipping costs, and what happens when someone buys more than once over the weekend.
Do you combine the orders and charge shipping once? Until when?
Buyers who join several lives will ask. Put the answer in your rules, so you don’t decide it 30 times by DM. If you want buyers to hold orders and ship them together automatically, your own shop can do that.
Work out your last order date
Your carrier publishes a last day to send for Christmas delivery. Your last order date is earlier, because orders need packing and payments need time.
Work back from the carrier’s date like this:
Regional, remote and international addresses can have earlier carrier dates, so check those too.
Christmas delivery deadlines for every major carrier has the cut-offs for Australia, New Zealand, the US, Canada and the UK in one table.
Once you have your date, put it in your rules, your listings and your emails.
Update your shipping and returns policy
Make sure your policy says the same thing everywhere: on your website, in your marketplace listings, on the sign at the counter, and in your pinned comment.
If sale items can’t be returned, say so before people buy, not after.
Marketplaces and shops
Selling on marketplaces? Check each marketplace’s sale or discount tool now, and set a realistic processing or handling time for a busy weekend. Late parcels can cost you: on eBay, more than 5 late shipments (or 5% of orders) rules out Top Rated status.
Running a physical shop? If you offer click and collect, decide where collected orders wait and who hands them over.
One week out: set the rules and the team
This week is about decisions you don’t want to make in the middle of a sale.
Choose your payment window
On lives, decide how long a claim is held before the item goes to the next person. Then say it every time.
24 hours from when you send the tally is easy for buyers to remember.
A short, clear window keeps stock moving to buyers who will pay. And you never have to chase someone for a week.
Save replies for the questions you always get
How do I pay? When will it ship? What size is this? Do you combine shipping?
Write the answers once. Save them as quick replies in your messaging app, or as notes on your phone.
On a busy weekend, every message you can answer in one tap gives you time back for packing.
Give each helper one job
If someone is helping, give them one job, not just “help out”. Watching comments and noting claims. Packing. Answering messages. Serving at the counter.
Jo’s partner packs orders and nothing else. He isn’t also trying to answer DMs mid-live and getting both half done.
Check your setup
Check the basics for how you sell:
- Lives: phone storage, charger, lighting and internet
- Marketplaces: listings and photos
- Physical shop: staff hours, change and the shop floor
The day before is too late to find out your phone is full.
On the day
If you’ve done the weeks before, the day itself is mostly about sticking to what you decided.
Post your rules where buyers will see them
Pin the rules at the start of each live, add them to your shop’s sale banner, and put the sign by the till.
On a live, pick one claim word, whether your buyers comment SOLD, MINE or dibs. Stick to it, so there’s no argument about what counts.
Repeat the rules on lives
People join late and scroll past the pinned comment.
Repeat how to claim and how long they have to pay every 15 to 20 minutes.
It feels repetitive to you. To the person who just joined, it’s the first time they’ve heard it.
Log every claim and sale as it happens
Write claims in your log during the live, and update your stock list as pieces sell. Not from memory afterwards.
Memory is how two people end up with the same top.
The week after
This is where Jo’s two days go. Work through it in this order, and the admin has an end.
Send tallies first
Live sellers: send each buyer a tally by DM, with what they claimed and the price codes or total to pay.
Until they have a tally, they can’t pay. So this comes before anything else.
Send one reminder, then release unpaid items
Check who has paid. Send one reminder at a set time.
When the payment window closes, release unpaid items to the next person who claimed them, or back into the next sale.
One reminder is fair. Chasing for a week costs you more than the item is worth.
Pack, ship and send tracking
Pack in batches, and send every buyer their tracking number.
Tracking answers “where’s my parcel?” before it’s asked. That matters most in a week when every parcel feels urgent to the person waiting for it.
Thank buyers and tell them what’s next
Thank your customers, and tell them when your next sale or drop is.
Black Friday can bring buyers who’ve never shopped with you. This message is how they become repeat ones.
Write down what sold
Note what sold, what didn’t, and what you’d change.
Next year’s plan should start from your own numbers, not a guess.
Get the printable checklist
Everything above on one page of tick boxes, grouped by week. Add your first name and email, and I’ll send it straight to your inbox.
Ready for your biggest week of the year?
Here’s the whole plan in five lines:
- Three weeks out: plan the sale.
- Two weeks out: test payments and shipping.
- One week out: set the rules and the team.
- On the day: stick to them.
- The week after: clear the admin, in order.
If matching payments, chasing buyers and sending tracking are what make sale week stressful, that’s the part I fix.
I set up online stores for small businesses, so customers pay at checkout by card or Afterpay, payments match their orders without you checking by hand, and tracking can go out automatically.
Book by early November and your shop can be ready well before Christmas, as long as the information you send me is complete.
FAQ
Quick answers to the questions I get most about Black Friday prep.
When should I start preparing for Black Friday?
Three weeks out is comfortable: a week to plan, a week to test payments and shipping, and a week for rules and supplies. With only a week, do the four steps at the top first.
How long should buyers have to pay after a live?
Pick one payment window, such as 24 hours from when you send the tally. State it on the live and in your pinned comment. A short, clear window keeps items moving to buyers who will pay.
Can customers use Afterpay for live sale claims?
Only if they pay through a shop or checkout that offers it. Afterpay works at a checkout, so buyers paying by bank transfer can’t use it.
With your own shop, buyers claim on the live and then pay at checkout, with Afterpay if they choose. Here’s how that works for live sellers.
Should marketplace sellers run their own Black Friday sale?
If you have your own shop, yes. Use the marketplace’s promotion tools to reach new buyers, and email your past customers about the sale on your own shop, where you keep more of each order. More on selling alongside the marketplaces.
Should a physical shop run the same sale online?
It’s worth doing, with the same offer and the same end date, so customers don’t feel they missed out by shopping in person. Keep one stock count for the counter and the website, so a piece can’t sell twice. How that works for local shops.