I have never worked in a business where the same discount made commercial sense across the entire product range.
In one business, we sold products at around £10 with a gross margin of roughly 55%. At the other end of the range were products worth £10,000 with margins closer to 7%.
Whenever somebody suggested a sitewide promotion, the obvious question was: can every part of the range actually support it?
Usually, the answer was no.
Black Friday conversations often start somewhere else. What percentage should we offer? When should the campaign launch? What will the homepage look like? How much should go into paid media?
All of that matters, but it is not where I would begin.
First, I want to know what the business needs to sell, how much stock is available, what each order will contribute and whether the operation can cope if the campaign works better than expected.
Without those answers, it is perfectly possible to deliver record revenue while making very little money, putting the operation under unnecessary pressure and disappointing customers along the way.
Gross margin is a starting point, not permission.
A product with a 55% gross margin can look as though it has plenty of room for a 50% discount, particularly if it has been sitting in the warehouse for a long time.
On paper, the selling price may still be just above the cost of buying or producing it. But that is not the full cost of the order.
Paid media, affiliate commission, payment fees, picking, packing, delivery and the likely cost of a return all need to be considered. Once they are included, there may be very little left.
In some cases, the business is effectively paying to sell stock it has already paid to store.
These decisions are not always made carelessly. The ecommerce director may understand the margin impact. Finance may approve the promotion because the annual operating budget has enough flexibility in it.
The problem is that an annual view can hide the economics of a specific campaign. You only see the real position when you bring together the cost of acquiring the customer, processing the order and fulfilling it.
For me, that is why Black Friday planning starts with stock and contribution, not the headline discount.
Decide what job each product is doing.
Not every product has the same role during peak.
Some products are there to attract a new customer. Some protect margin. Some make sense in a bundle or help increase basket value. Others genuinely need to be cleared before they become older and harder to sell.
Treating all of them in the same way is unlikely to produce a good commercial result.
At one previous business, we built a Christmas campaign around a product with strong availability and a natural link to the season. It worked well as a gift and gave new customers an accessible way to make a first purchase.
That product had a clear job. It was not included simply because the business felt it needed something to discount.
Before setting the offer, I would separate the range into:
- products that can attract demand;
- products that protect contribution;
- products that can encourage a wider basket;
- stock able to support a longer campaign;
- constrained products that need protecting;
- genuinely aged stock that needs clearing.
This gives Marketing a much better brief. It also makes the fallback plan easier.
If the hero product reaches its stock threshold, the team should already know whether to move media spend, feature an alternative, release more stock or close the offer. That decision should not need to start from scratch during peak.
Work out what the order really contributes.
Revenue is only the beginning of the calculation.
A useful commercial model should include:
- product cost;
- discount cost;
- paid media and affiliate commission;
- payment and marketplace fees;
- packaging and fulfilment;
- delivery;
- expected cancellations and returns.
This gives the team a more realistic contribution per order and, importantly, something it can use as a trading guardrail.
Every headline promotion should have:
- a minimum acceptable contribution per order;
- a maximum discount by product or category;
- clear rules for promotional and loyalty stacking;
- an assumption for the mix of new and returning customers;
- a stop condition if contribution, stock or acquisition cost moves too far away from plan.
I do not see this as Finance slowing a campaign down. It is the opposite. When the limits and decision rules are already agreed, a trading team can move much faster.
More demand creates more operational work.
Increasing the rate of sale changes far more than the revenue line.
I have seen promotional activity put pressure on the ecommerce platform, server capacity and the teams responsible for picking, packing and dispatching orders. I have also sat through plenty of campaign reviews where the conversation moved very quickly from the sales result to everything it took to deliver it.
Revenue alone is not enough for an operational forecast.
The warehouse needs an estimate of order volume, units per order, likely parcel size, orders per hour and when those orders are expected to arrive. Two campaigns generating the same revenue can create very different demands on the operation.
The same is true of the website. A site can technically remain online while search, stock updates, checkout or payments are failing for customers.
Adobe found that mobile accounted for 61.5% of UK online holiday revenue in 2025. A desktop-only sign-off therefore misses the journey used for most online holiday spending.
Test campaign links, navigation, search, filters, product pages, promotion application, wallet payments, 3DS, order confirmations and recovery from failed payments. Use real devices and slower connections as well as the office network.
Plan for the forecast to be wrong.
It will be. The purpose of forecasting is not to predict peak perfectly. It is to make sure the business can manage the difference between the plan and what actually happens.
I would build at least three scenarios:
- Base: the expected level of demand, conversion and order volume.
- Upside: stronger traffic, conversion or product demand than expected.
- Downside: weaker demand, late stock, operational constraints or rising acquisition costs.
Each scenario needs an agreed response.
That might mean moving media spend, releasing stock in stages, changing an offer, switching to a substitute product, updating the delivery promise or increasing customer communication.
Without those triggers, people spend valuable time debating the decision while the issue gets worse.
Look at the whole customer journey.
Customers do not see the departments behind an ecommerce business. They see one experience.
They click an advert, land on the site, understand the offer, choose a product, pay, wait for delivery and decide whether to keep it. A break at any point changes the value of everything that came before it.
I would check the plan across the full journey:
- Acquisition: Are we attracting the right customers to products we can sell profitably?
- Discovery: Can people understand the offer, availability and delivery position?
- Decision: Do product pages give customers the information and confidence needed to buy?
- Checkout: Do discounts, payments, delivery choices and stock reservations work under pressure?
- Delivery: Can the business meet the promise shown on the site and in the order confirmation?
- Aftercare: Can customers track, change, cancel or return an order without avoidable effort?
Aftercare matters even more when people are buying gifts. Ofcom found that delivery delays were the most commonly reported parcel problem in its 2025 research.
A late present is not experienced as a warehouse measure. To the customer, it is a promise the brand failed to keep.
Questions I would ask before signing off Black Friday.
Before approving the campaign, the team should be able to answer:
- Which products are included, protected or excluded?
- What stock is available and when can it be replenished?
- What is the contribution per order after discount and expected returns?
- What happens when the hero product reaches its stock threshold?
- Can paid activity stop or move quickly when availability changes?
- Has the complete mobile journey been tested?
- Can the warehouse and carrier support the upside scenario?
- Is the delivery promise consistent across advertising, the website, checkout and customer service?
- Are fallback messages and creative ready?
- Who has the authority to pause or change the campaign?
If those answers are unclear, the campaign is not ready, no matter how polished the creative looks.
Start with the reason for the promotion.
Discounting is not automatically wrong. It simply needs to do a clear job.
Start with the stock. Decide the role each product should play. Calculate what the business is likely to retain from each order. Then decide whether a discount is needed and how far the business can afford to go.
At blubolt, our Journey-Led Growth approach brings trading, customer experience, technology and data into the same conversation. That creates more than a stronger Black Friday campaign. It gives the business a Q4 plan that makes commercial sense and can actually be delivered.
Ready to build a Black Friday strategy that prioritises profit over volume?
Explore our services to see how we can align your trading, technology, and operations for peak season. Take a look at our work to discover how we’ve helped ambitious brands scale sustainably, or get in touch with our team today to start planning a Q4 that actually delivers on its commercial promise.
