Singles' Day sale ideas for your Shopify store: a one-day on-site plan

Singles' Day falls on 11 November, about two weeks before Black Friday. For a Shopify store it can be a useful one-day sale aimed at shoppers buying something for themselves, as long as it starts on time, ends on time and doesn't leave an old offer sitting in the store when your Black Friday plan begins.

This guide shows how to run Singles' Day on the store itself with Atomato: one offer announced in the feed, a self-gift pick shoppers can add from that feed, one timed reminder on the sale collection, and a schedule that takes it all down at the end of the day.

The focus is the shopper already browsing, and the cleanup that keeps 11 November clear of Black Friday on 27 November.

Why a one-day sale needs its own plan

A one-day sale has two hard edges. Shoppers who arrive on the morning of 11 November should see the offer straight away, and shoppers who arrive on 12 November should not. An offer that lingers is the last thing you want two weeks before Black Friday.

So treat Singles' Day as its own small campaign set, separate from your Black Friday campaigns, with its own start and end. If you are planning the whole season, our guide to planning BFCM on-site messages shows where Singles' Day sits in the run of November campaigns.

Pick one offer and one end time

Decide the offer first. Keep it to one idea a shopper can repeat back: 11% off one collection, a free gift over a set cart value, or a limited product released for the day. Two offers on one day split attention and make the message longer.

Then write down the exact end time, for example 11:00 pm on 11 November, in your store's time zone. You will use that time for every campaign below.

Set up the discount itself in Shopify. Atomato doesn't create discount codes for feed messages or NotiPops. If you are deciding between a code and an automatic discount, see automatic discounts versus discount codes.

Announce it in the feed

The feed sits behind the bell in your store's header. Shoppers open it when they choose, and the bell's badge tells them something new is waiting. That makes it a natural place for a dated offer.

Create a NotiFeed campaign from the Promote a sale or launch goal. The Urgent Offer template is a good start for a one-day sale. Replace the sample title, description and image with your own, and point the button at the sale collection instead of the home page. A link to a collection page gives a click the longest window to count a later add to cart.

Here is a sample message:

Singles' Day: 11% off for you, today only

Treat yourself to something from the self-care edit. Ends tonight at 11 pm. Shop the edit

Before and after: a first draft of "Our biggest Singles' Day sale ever, don't miss out on huge savings across the store" says nothing a shopper can act on. The version above names the offer, the collection and the end time in under 25 words.

NotiFeed is on every plan. On Starter (Free), one NotiFeed campaign can be active at a time, with one message, so pause any other NotiFeed campaign before you save this one, even as a draft.

Schedule it to start and stop on 11 November

On Scale and Enterprise+, open each Singles' Day campaign's Schedule tab, set the start date and time, tick Set end date and enter your end time. At the start time the campaign becomes Active. At the end time it becomes Completed and leaves the store on its own, even if nobody has Atomato open.

Two details catch people out. Times are set in whole hours, and they use the time zone of the computer you schedule from, not your store's, so convert first if the two differ. The editor and the Campaigns list show times in your computer's time zone too.

On Starter (Free), scheduling is locked. Save the campaign as Active on the morning of 11 November and click Pause campaign on its summary page when the sale ends. Set a reminder so it doesn't run into 12 November. The help article on scheduling covers every rule.

Add a self-gift pick with NotiSell

Singles' Day shoppers are often buying for themselves, so a short list of products they can add from the feed fits the day. NotiSell shows up to six products inside the feed, each with its image, price and an add to cart button.

Choose Manual and pick the products in your sale collection that make the best self-gift, or use Best sellers if the whole range is included. Write a title such as "Picked for you, 11.11 only". To show the reduced price in the feed, turn on Offer incentive, which creates a Shopify automatic discount for the listed variants added with the NotiSell button. Keep Add product to the cart ticked, or shoppers pay full price. If your Shopify sale discount covers the same products, check how the two combine and test at checkout.

Give the NotiSell campaign the same start and end as the feed message. When a scheduled NotiSell campaign with a discount ends, its discount is switched off at the same time. NotiSell needs Scale or Enterprise+. See Recommend products in the feed with NotiSell for every setting.

One reminder on the sale collection

A NotiPop is a small message that appears over the page without blocking it. For a one-day sale, one NotiPop is enough. Start from the Sitewide Promo template, point its button at the sale collection, add a Page URL rule such as Contains /collections/self-care so it shows on that collection, and set Appear after to Scrolled at 25% so it shows once they are reading.

Keep the wording short, for example "11% off the self-care edit ends tonight at 11 pm". A NotiPop doesn't apply a discount code, so the offer has to work through your Shopify discount. Give it the same schedule as the rest of the Singles' Day campaigns. On Starter (Free), one NotiPop campaign can be active at a time, with one NotiPop.

Hand over cleanly to Black Friday

The badge on the bell counts feed messages a shopper hasn't seen yet. Editing an old message doesn't make it new again, so don't rewrite your Singles' Day message into a Black Friday teaser. Let the Singles' Day campaign complete, then publish the teaser as a new campaign so the badge counts it. Our post on Black Friday teaser, launch and last call messages picks up from there.

What this setup does not do

• It doesn't send emails or texts. Your email and SMS tools still carry the announcement to your list.
• It has no rule for the shopper's country. If Singles' Day only matters in some of your markets, use a UTM rule on the links you share there, which matches only on the landing page.
• It doesn't split traffic between two versions of the offer, and there's no setting to limit how often a message shows.
• It doesn't show on Shopify checkout or the thank-you page.
• A schedule belongs to the whole campaign, not to each message, so put messages with different end times in different campaigns.

Next step

Pick your offer and end time today, build the campaigns and preview them on desktop and mobile before 11 November. Scheduling and NotiSell need Scale or Enterprise+. On Starter (Free), the feed message and NotiPop work, with one active campaign of each type at a time. See plans and pricing and the BFCM page for the rest of the season.

Install free on Shopify