When should you start planning for Black Friday?

September for stock, October for everything else. The preparation that decides November happens weeks before anybody is thinking about it.

The reasoning

The order that works: stock committed in September, the offer decided in early October, the audience warmed through the month, and the site load-tested before the last week. Stores that start in November discount deeper because they have nothing else left.

What most people get wrong

The preparation that matters happens in October. A store deciding its Black Friday plan in November is already reacting.

Discounting into a crowd where everybody is discounting wins volume and loses margin. The stores that do well have a reason to be chosen that is not the price.

Traffic spikes break the things that were nearly broken already — usually image weight and a checkout step nobody tested under load.

How an app changes it

This is the one week where owning a notification channel pays for the year — reaching last year’s buyers costs nothing per message.