After Black Friday: End Cleanly and Earn the Second Order

In short

• End the sale on Monday 30 November at 23:59, as announced, and check on Tuesday that every price went back.
• In December, keep prices whole. Offer free shipping above your average order until your carrier's last day, then point to gift cards.
• In January, send Black Friday's new customers a private code for a second order, smaller than the Black Friday offer.

Black Friday 2026 is Friday 27 November, and Cyber Monday is Monday 30 November. By Tuesday morning you have two things to protect. One is the price you just called the lowest of the year. The other is a list of people who know your store for one parcel.

This guide covers the pricing and discount work after the sale, in the order it happens. Thank-you notes, reviews and returns belong to your email and support tools, so they stay out of it. The whole season is on the Black Friday checklist.

End on Monday at 23:59 and check the prices went back

Why it matters. A Bulk price editor campaign writes the sale price into the product itself, and puts the price back when it ends. Two cases need a look. For a product with no compare-at price, the old price is kept in the compare-at field during the sale. For a product that already had a compare-at price, the old price is not stored anywhere. Prices are also rounded to the nearest whole number while the sale runs.

1. Before the sale, note the price and compare-at price of every product that already has a compare-at price.
2. Set each campaign's end to Monday 30 November, 23:59, when you build it.
3. On Tuesday morning, open five products from each Bulk price editor campaign. Check the price, the compare-at price and the sale badge.
4. Check one variant of each product as well, a size or a colour.
5. If a sale badge stays, clear the leftover compare-at price in Shopify: open Products, select them, choose Edit products, clear Compare at price and save.
6. End every Bulk price editor campaign before you uninstall Discounty or any other pricing app.

Worked example. A shirt at $60 with no compare-at price went to $45 at 25% off, with $60 kept in the compare-at field. On Tuesday it should read $60 with no sale badge. A jacket already showed $150 crossed out next to $120, and the sale took it to $90. The $120 is not saved in the product, so check Tuesday's price against your note.

The catch. Uninstalling while a Bulk price editor campaign runs leaves the sale prices in place, and the sale badge stays with them. The badge comes from your theme. More in what goes wrong at Black Friday.

Let the sale end, with no surprise extension

Why it matters. A sale that runs into Tuesday tells Friday's buyers they were early, and every later deadline loses weight. Customers who see a lower price after buying order less in the months after. Anderson and Simester saw this at a clothing catalogue that mailed a post-Christmas sale to recent buyers, and the company stopped sending it to them (Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2010). US and UK regulators name a countdown that restarts, or an offer that outlives its timer, as false urgency. If you want a longer sale, announce its length before it starts.

1. Decide the end before the sale opens: Monday 30 November, 23:59.
2. Use an Ends in countdown on campaigns that end at that minute, and on no others.
3. If you want a longer sale, set its real end now and say it in your launch email.
4. On Tuesday morning, take down every banner and pop-up that names the sale.
5. If a campaign has no end date, end it by hand on Monday night.

The countdown timer is on the Essential plan and up.

Worked example. In an ordinary December week your store sells $2,000 a day at full price. Extend 20% off for two days, and $400 a day goes to people who were buying anyway. That is $800 across Tuesday and Wednesday before a single extra order arrives.

The catch. A quiet extension is often an accident. Last Black Friday season, 11% of the campaigns stores started in Discounty had no end date. Those campaigns end when someone remembers them.

Free shipping above your average order until the last shipping day

Why it matters. December still sells, and Adobe's 2026 forecast puts December discounts at 10 to 15%, against about 30% in Cyber Week. Free shipping pulls hardest as the shipping deadline nears. Set above your average order, it gives buyers a reason to order now, and the Black Friday price stays the lowest. A minimum above the average order earned more than free shipping on every order in Chen and Ngwe's study of Zalora's orders (2018), because small orders grew to reach it. After the last shipping day a parcel cannot arrive in time. A gift card can, and half of US shoppers named it as a gift they wanted in the National Retail Federation's October 2025 survey.

Shipping discount is on the Lite plan and up. The shipping progress bar works on automatic shipping discounts, on one campaign at a time.

1. Create a campaign and choose Shipping discount.
2. Choose Automatic Discount, so nothing has to be typed.
3. Set the discount to Free shipping.
4. Choose Minimum order amount and set it where the extra spend pays the shipping: your average order plus your shipping cost divided by your margin.
5. Choose the markets it covers.
6. Turn on the progress bar for this campaign, so the cart shows what is left to spend.
7. If it is not already running from Cyber Monday, set the start to Monday 30 November and the end to your carrier's last day for Christmas delivery.
8. The next morning, point your homepage banner to gift cards.

Worked example. Your average order is $64, shipping costs you $8 and your margin is 60%. $64 plus $8 divided by 0.60 is about $77, so set the minimum at $80. A shopper at $64 adds a $16 candle to reach $80. At a 60% margin the candle earns $9.60, which covers the delivery. If you ship with USPS Ground Advantage, its last day for delivery by Christmas in 2026 is Thursday 17 December. The campaign runs from 1 to 17 December.

The catch. Shopify applies one shipping discount per order. If your store already ships free above a minimum all year, this campaign says nothing new, so skip it. Free shipping with no minimum is no fix either, because its cost lands on your smallest orders.

A private code for the second order, in January

Why it matters. Customers won with a deep discount are worth less over time than customers who came without one (Lewis, Journal of Marketing Research, 2006). Customers won through free trials were also worth less, yet they answered marketing messages more readily (Datta, Foubert and Van Heerde, 2015), so following up pays. The code should be smaller than Black Friday's, so they do not learn to wait for the next big sale. It should be private, so your public price stays whole. The timing is our judgement, since no study compares December with January. In December your new customers are still buying gifts, and a code mostly discounts orders that were coming anyway. In January the same code is more likely to create an order. So in December, thank them with no code.

Advanced discount code is on the Essential plan and up. Limiting a code to a customer segment is on the Discounty plan and up. On the Lite plan, a Shipping discount code with free shipping and one use per customer does the same job, sent to the segment's customers alone.

1. In Shopify admin, go to Customers, then Segments. Create a segment of customers with exactly one order, placed between 24 and 30 November.
2. In Discounty, create a campaign and choose Advanced discount code.
3. Type a code people can read aloud, or use Generate random code.
4. Turn on the Order discount at 10% off, or the Shipping discount at free shipping. Pick one.
5. Under Maximum discount uses, turn on Limit to one use per customer.
6. Limit the code to the segment from step 1.
7. Set the start to Monday 4 January, 00:00, and the end to Sunday 24 January, 23:59.
8. Open Share link (it shows once the store has its own domain), choose a Link destination, and use Copy link for the email.

Worked example. Black Friday week brought 300 new customers. In January, 10% off a $70 order costs you $7. The Black Friday offer of 20% would cost $14 on the same order. If one in ten of the 300 uses the code, that is 30 second orders for $210 in discounts.

The catch. A code looks at the cart in front of it. It does not check whether this customer has ordered before. A customer segment does that job. On plans without segments, the list you send it to does, and a forwarded code works for whoever types it.

Clearance after Christmas, for stock that sat out Black Friday

Why it matters. Returns pile up in the days after Christmas. If a Black Friday product is cheaper on 27 December, a customer can return it and buy it again at the lower price. Buyers who see a lower price after buying also order less afterwards. In the EU, the "before" price in a discount is the lowest price of the previous 30 days. A product on sale until 30 November carries its sale price as that reference until 30 December. So keep clearance to seasonal or surplus stock that was not in the sale.

Excludes is on the Lite plan and up. On the Starter plan, choose a clearance collection that holds no Black Friday products.

1. Put every product from the Black Friday sale into one collection before you plan the clearance.
2. Create a Bulk price editor campaign on a collection of stock that sat out the sale.
3. Under Excludes, add the Black Friday collection, so nothing from it slips in.
4. Set the depth, the start and the end date.
5. Turn on an Ends in countdown if the clearance really ends on that date.
6. If a Black Friday product has to go, keep it at or above its Black Friday price, and leave it out of emails to the people who bought it.

Worked example. A jacket sold at $48 on Black Friday, 20% off $60. At 30% off on 27 December it would be $42, which is $6 below what your Black Friday buyers spent. At $48 it matches them. A scarf that sat out Black Friday can drop from $40 to $28 at 30% off without undercutting anyone.

The catch. With auto-update on, products that start to match the clearance filter join it by themselves. If the clearance targets a tag and a Black Friday product gets that tag, it can slip in. Keep the Black Friday collection under Excludes for the whole of January.

How to undo it

Nothing in this guide is permanent. A private code or a shipping campaign can be deactivated in Discounty at any time, and it stops at checkout from that moment. A clearance run as a Bulk price editor campaign puts the prices back when it ends. The one step that cannot be undone from inside the app is uninstalling while a Bulk price editor campaign runs. If you do leave, use the Safe uninstall flow in Discounty: it deactivates every active campaign first, so prices go back before the app is gone.

Questions

Should I extend my Black Friday sale?

Not as a surprise. If you want a longer sale, set the end and announce it before the sale opens. A sale that runs past its deadline teaches customers to wait.

How do I check my prices went back after the sale?

On Tuesday morning, open five products from each Bulk price editor campaign. Compare the price, the compare-at price and the sale badge with your note from before the sale, starting with products that already had a compare-at price.

What discount should I offer Black Friday's new customers for a second order?

Something smaller than the Black Friday offer, sent to them alone: 10% off the order or free shipping, once per customer, with a clear end date.

When should I send the second-order code?

In January, from Monday 4 to Sunday 24 January. In December, thank new customers with no code, since many are still buying gifts and would order anyway.

Can I run a clearance sale on Black Friday products after Christmas?

Keep those products at or above their Black Friday price, and clear stock that sat out the sale instead. In the EU, the Black Friday price stays the reference price for 30 days after the sale ends.

Can a discount code check whether someone has ordered before?

No. A code looks at the cart in front of it. On the Discounty plan and up, limit it to a Shopify customer segment that does that check.