Preparing Your Shopify Plus Store for Black Friday

Black Friday is the Super Bowl of retail, a high-stakes game where the winners reap massive rewards. 

For Shopify Plus merchants, the platform is built to handle significant peaks in demand. But that doesn’t mean your store is automatically ready for BFCM. 

From Shopify Plus optimisation and site performance to checkout, integrations, merchandising and conversion rate optimisation, here’s what to review before the biggest shopping weekend of the year.

The goal isn’t simply to keep your store online. It’s to make sure you’re ready to turn increased demand into sales. 

Before BFCM, take a step back and experience your store as a customer would. Review your: 

• Homepage and navigation
• Collection and product pages
• Search and filtering 
• Cart and checkout
• Mobile experience
• Promotional landing pages

Look for anything that could create friction. Are your best-selling products easy to find? Can customers understand your offer quickly? Is there anything slowing down the path to purchase? 

A pre-BFCM Shopify store audit can help identify technical, UX and conversion issues before they become problems during peak trading.

Your store might work perfectly with normal traffic, but BFCM is the time to make sure unnecessary complexity isn’t slowing it down. Review your:

• Third-party apps
• Tracking scripts
• Custom code
• Images and media
• Theme functionality
• Key landing pages

Remove anything you no longer need and investigate anything affecting page speed or the customer experience. 

You don’t need to strip your store back to the bare minimum. Instead, make sure every piece of technology has a purpose and can support your peak trading plans. 

Getting customers to your store is only half the battle. Once they’re ready to buy, you don’t want unnecessary friction getting in the way. 

Test the entire journey:

Landing page → Product → Cart → Checkout → Payment → Confirmation

Ensure that: 

• Discount codes work correctly
• Shipping rates are accurate
• Payment methods work
• Stock updates correctly
• Order confirmations are triggered
• The experience works smoothly on mobile

It’s also worth reviewing your checkout from a conversion perspective. Are customers given enough information about delivery and returns? Are there unnecessary steps? Are accelerated payment options such as Shop Pay available where appropriate?

More traffic won’t necessarily mean more revenue if your store isn’t converting it. That’s why BFCM preparation is also an opportunity to identify areas for conversion rate optimisation (CRO).

Black Friday shoppers may be ready to buy, but they still need confidence in what they’re purchasing. Review your: 

• Product photography
• Descriptions
• Reviews 
• FAQs
• Delivery and returns information
• Size and fit guidance
• Product recommendations
• Promotional messaging

Think about what a first-time customer would need to know before making a purchase. You can also use merchandising and recommendations to increase average order value through complementary products, bundles and upsells. 

The aim isn’t just to drive more traffic. It’s to get more value from the traffic you’re already paying to acquire.

BFCM doesn’t just put pressure on your storefront. It puts pressure on everything behind it. Review the systems connected to your Shopify store, including: 

• Inventory 
• ERP and PIM 
• Fulfilment
• Shipping
• CRM 
• Customer Service
• Email and SMS
• Analytics

Make sure orders, inventory and customer information are moving between systems correctly. Pay particular attention to manual processes. If your team relies on spreadsheets or manual data entry to keep systems up to date, peak trading can quickly expose those weaknesses. 

Your store shouldn’t be the only thing you prepare. Think about how customers will discover your offers and what you want the promotion to achieve. Your BFCM strategy might include: 

• Email and SMS 
• Paid social and search 
• Retargeting 
• Influencer or creator partnerships
• Early access 
• Exclusive products
• Bundles 
• Spend thresholds
• Dedicated BFCM landing pages

But don’t discount everything simply because it’s Black Friday. 

Consider what you’re actually trying to achieve – whether that’s acquiring new customers, increasing average order value, clearing inventory or rewarding loyal customers. 

Then make sure your technology supports the strategy. If you’re running a specific promotion, test it. If you’re sending paid traffic to a landing page, optimise it. If you’re launching a new bundle, make sure your inventory and fulfilment systems can handle it.

The closer you get to Black Friday, the less time you have to fix problems. Use the weeks beforehand to: 

• Audit your store
• Review performance
• Test your customer journey
• Check your integrations
• Test promotions
• Review your mobile experience
• Confirm your fulfillment processes
• Decide what you’ll measure

And avoid making major, untested changes immediately before peak trading. 

The aim is to go into BFCM knowing that your store, systems and team are ready. 

BFCM preparation isn’t just about keeping your store online. It’s about making sure your ecommerce foundations can support the demand you’re generating. 

At Quickfire, we help ambitious ecommerce brands with Shopify Plus development, optimisation, integrations, migrations and ongoing ecommerce support. 

Whether you need a technical audit, improvements to your customer experience or help connecting the systems behind your store, we can help you get ready for peak trading. 

Don’t wait until Black Friday is around the corner to find out what’s holding your store back. 

Contact us today about getting your store BFCM-ready.