A guide to setting up Black Friday discounts on Shopify

To set up Black Friday discounts on Shopify, decide the offer first, then build it in Discounts in your Shopify admin: pick the discount type, choose a code or an automatic discount, set who and what it applies to, set the combinations, and set the active dates. Then test a few real carts before the sale opens.

Most Black Friday discount problems come from an old code that still stacks, a minimum that counts different things than expected, or a missing end date. This guide walks through each setting in order, so you finish with a discount for each part of your offer and a test list to run before the sale.

Start with the offer, not the settings

Write your sale in one sentence, the way a shopper would read it, such as "20% off everything, Friday to Monday, plus free shipping on bigger orders." That tells you how many discounts you need and which kind.

Every discount has one of three classes, which decide how it combines:

• Product discounts apply to specific items or collections, or to all products.
• Order discounts apply to the cart subtotal.
• Shipping discounts change the shipping cost.

In the admin, go to Discounts and click Create discount. You then choose Amount off products, Amount off orders, Buy X get Y or Free shipping.

Choose a discount code or an automatic discount

Each discount uses one of two methods. A discount code is entered by the shopper at checkout. You type a name or click Generate code. An automatic discount applies without a code once the cart meets its conditions. For a free shipping discount, Shopify notes that the title displays to customers in their cart and at checkout, so write it as a plain label such as "Black Friday free shipping".

Use an automatic discount for a store-wide or collection-wide sale every shopper should get, so nobody has to find a code. Use a code when the offer is for a specific audience, such as your email list or a creator.

Two limits from Shopify's discount combinations guide are worth knowing now. You can have a maximum of 25 active automatic discounts, and that count includes app-based discounts. A shopper can use at most 5 product or order discount codes and 1 shipping discount code on the same order.

Set the value, products and minimum requirements

For an Amount off products or Amount off orders discount, select Percentage or Fixed amount and enter the value. Under Applies to, choose Specific products or Specific collections, or leave it on all products. If you are building a dedicated sale collection, our guide to Shopify collection page best practices covers the conditions and sorting.

For a fixed amount, look at Only apply discount once per order. Without it, the amount applies to every eligible product in the order.

Under Minimum requirements, you can set a Minimum purchase amount or a Minimum quantity of items. According to Shopify's page on amount off discounts, the minimum purchase amount counts product prices only, so shipping and taxes aren't included. Gift cards and store credit used as payment don't count toward it either. When the discount applies to specific products or collections, only those items count toward the minimum.

For a Buy X get Y offer, remember that shoppers must add every item to the cart themselves, including the free or discounted one. Say so on the product page. If a free item sells out, it shows as sold out and the discount can't be used, so stock up on the "get" product.

Decide who can use it and how often

Under eligibility, choose All customers, Specific customers, Customer segments or Markets. Segments suit early access for past buyers.

For discount codes, Maximum discount uses has two options. Limit number of times this discount can be used in total caps the code across all shoppers. Limit to one per customer tracks the customer's email address or phone number. Without these settings, usage is unlimited.

Set combinations on purpose

In the Combinations section of each discount, you tick the classes it can combine with. Shopify's rules:

• Order discounts can combine with free shipping discounts, product discounts can combine with free shipping discounts, and product discounts can combine with other product discounts on separate items, for all merchants.
• Product discounts can combine with order discounts only if your store is eligible: it can't use checkout.liquid customizations or the Licensify app.
• A combination only works when the setting on each discount allows it.
• Multiple product discounts on the same line item require a Shopify Plus plan.
• Multiple shipping discounts can't apply to the same order.
• Product discounts apply first, then order discounts, then shipping discounts.
• If discounts can't combine, the best discount for the shopper's cart is applied.
• Combinations work on orders made through the Online Store, the Storefront API and Shopify POS. External checkouts such as Facebook, Instagram and Google don't support them.

Before the sale, open every active discount, not only the new ones. An old welcome or creator code may still combine with your sale price.

Schedule the start and end

Under Active dates, set a start date. Then click Set end date and choose when it stops. A discount with no end date doesn't expire, so always set one for a sale. Shopify uses your store's time zone for these dates.

Create the discounts a few days early with a future start date. If you need to stop a code early, you can deactivate it from the Discounts page, one at a time or several with a bulk action. Shopify's guide to managing discounts notes that a shopper who then enters it sees "Unable to find a valid discount matching the code entered."

For codes you share in emails or ads, use a shareable link. It applies the code to the shopper's cart and can open a collection or product page. It only works while the discount is active.

A worked example, before and after

Say you sell candles and plan "20% off everything, Friday to Monday, plus free shipping on orders over $60." These numbers are an example only.

Before: you create one automatic Amount off products discount at 20% with no end date, and a free shipping code called SHIPFREE. Your welcome code WELCOME10, an order discount from the spring, is still active and set to combine with product discounts, which eligible stores can do. On Friday, shoppers get 20% off, then 10% off the order with WELCOME10, and have to find a code to get free shipping. On Tuesday, the 20% is still on.

After: you create an automatic Amount off products discount titled "Black Friday 20% off", applied to all products, set to combine with shipping discounts only, with a start date on Friday and an end date on Monday. You create an automatic Free shipping discount titled "Black Friday free shipping" with a $60 minimum purchase amount, set to combine with product discounts, and the same dates. You open WELCOME10 and turn off its product discount combination for the weekend, or deactivate it and reactivate it after the sale. Then you test a cart under $60, one over $60, and one with WELCOME10.

If you reactivate an expired discount, Shopify sets it to Active with no end date, so add one back.

Common mistakes and what discounts won't fix

• Forgetting old codes. Review every active discount and its combinations.
• No end date. The sale keeps running after Monday until someone notices.
• Testing only one cart. Test under and over each minimum, with and without a code.
• Relying on combinations in social checkouts. External checkouts such as Facebook, Instagram and Google don't support combinations.

A discount won't fix a slow store, a confusing product page or a sale shoppers never hear about. It only changes the price.

If you run many discounts at once

Everything above uses Shopify's own discounts. If your Black Friday plan has many sales, codes and shipping offers running at once, a discount app can manage them in one place. We work with the team behind Discounty, and the link below is a sponsored link.

Discounty: Bulk Discount Sales runs six campaign types from one place: bulk price editor, quantity discount, cart goal, Buy X get Y, shipping discount and advanced discount code, each on its own schedule. Lumos, its in-app assistant, sets up a campaign from a short description for you to check and save. It has a free plan, so you can try it before the sale.

Tell shoppers on-site, then measure the result

If you use Atomato, a NotiFeed announcement in the bell feed can state the offer and link to the sale collection. NotiFeed is on every plan. On Starter, one campaign with one message can be active, and you start and stop it by hand. On Scale and Enterprise+, one campaign can hold up to six messages and you can schedule its start and end, so you can match it to your discount dates. Atomato doesn't create discount codes for these messages, so set up the discount in Shopify first and use the same offer, code if any, and dates in the message. Atomato's schedule uses the time zone of the computer you schedule from, so convert the times if that differs from your store's time zone. See Promote a sale or launch for the full setup.

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Back in stock: Canvas ToteLimited quantity. Tap to shop before it goes.

New arrivals: the fall editTwelve new styles, in stock now.

After the weekend, open the Sales by discount codes report in Shopify Analytics. It groups sales by the discount name, including automatic discount names. Its sales value only includes the line items the discount affected, and an order that used combined discounts appears once in each discount's row, so don't add the rows together as total sales.

Black Friday discount checklist

1. List the discounts your offer needs, code or automatic.
2. Set the value, products, minimum, eligibility and usage limits.
3. Set combinations for every new discount and review every old one.
4. Set start and end dates in your store's time zone.
5. Test carts under and over each minimum, with and without codes.
6. Check the Sales by discount codes report after the sale.

Common questions

Can I use an automatic discount and a discount code on the same order?

Yes, if both discounts are set to combine with each other's class. A product discount and an order discount can combine only in eligible stores. If they can't combine, Shopify applies the best discount for the shopper's cart.

How many automatic discounts can be active at once?

Up to 25, including discounts created by apps.

How do I schedule a Shopify discount to start at midnight?

Set the start date under Active dates. An amount off discount starts at 12:00 am on that date in the time zone set in your Shopify admin. Then add an end date with Set end date.

Why isn't my discount code working?

Check that it is active and inside its dates, that the cart meets the minimum, that the shopper is eligible, that it hasn't reached its usage limit, and that it can combine with any discount already in the cart.

Next step

Open Discounts today, review every active discount, then build your sale discounts with future start dates and test them. For the rest of your sale plan, see our Black Friday Cyber Monday guide.

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