I work on Shopify stores throughout the year, and the problems I see in November are almost always ones that could have been caught in October. Here’s the checklist I run through.
The 10-point checklist
1. Check mobile speed
Most holiday shoppers buy on their phones. Remove apps you no longer use (many leave code behind), compress large images and check your home, collection and product pages in PageSpeed Insights. A slow product page costs more sales than almost anything else on this list.
2. Place a real test order
Go through checkout on a phone with each payment method you offer: card, Shop Pay, PayPal, Apple Pay and any buy-now-pay-later option. Check the confirmation email and that the order shows up correctly.
3. Set up and test your offers
Create discount codes and automatic discounts in advance, schedule them to start and end at the right time, and test them with real carts. Check they don’t stack in ways you didn’t intend.
4. Make the offer obvious
Use an announcement bar, a home page banner and sale badges on product pages. Shoppers should understand the deal in a few seconds without hunting for it.
5. Update shipping and delivery information
Add last order dates for delivery before Christmas, check shipping rates and free shipping thresholds, and show estimated delivery on product pages if your theme supports it.
6. Check stock and product pages
Make sure best sellers have stock, sold-out variants are handled cleanly, and key product pages have good photos, sizes and clear descriptions. Add cross-sells or bundles to raise the average order.
7. Turn on abandoned checkout emails
Shopify includes these. Write them in your own voice and send the first one within a few hours. During the sale, plenty of shoppers add to cart and get distracted.
8. Verify your tracking
Check that purchases are recorded in Google Analytics, Google Ads and Meta (through Shopify’s Facebook and Instagram channel with the Conversions API turned on). If you plan to run holiday ads, this matters more than anything else: ads optimise on the data they receive. The ideas in this guide to the Meta Pixel and Conversions API apply to Shopify too.
9. Prepare customer service
Update your FAQ, returns policy and contact details. Add holiday return dates if you extend them. Set up quick replies for common questions so you’re not typing the same answer all weekend.
10. Freeze changes
Finish theme edits and app installs about a week before Black Friday. Back up your theme by duplicating it, and avoid installing new apps during the sale.
A simple timeline
- Early November: speed, apps, product pages and tracking.
- Two weeks before: build offers, banners and emails; test checkout.
- One week before: final test order, then freeze changes.
- Sale weekend: watch orders, stock and site speed; reply to customers quickly.
- After the sale: review what sold, and follow up with new customers.
Common mistakes
- Editing the live theme on the day of the sale.
- Discount codes that fail at checkout or apply to the wrong products.
- Ads sending traffic to the home page instead of the sale collection.
- No clear delivery cut-off dates, which leads to complaints in December.
- Tracking that stopped working after a theme or app change.
If you want a second pair of eyes on your store before the holidays, get in touch. I can run through this checklist on your Shopify store and fix what needs fixing well before Black Friday.