1 Retail Gazette. (April, 2025).
For most online stores, Black Friday is the biggest sales weekend of the year. It’s also when stores lose the most sales to slow checkouts and abandoned baskets.
Here are the numbers:
This guide gives you eleven practical steps to get your store ready. They cover planning, offers, checkout, BNPL, and what to do after the sales end.
We spoke to UK ecommerce merchants who have run their own stores through past Black Fridays. They share what works.
A solid Black Friday preparation ecommerce strategy gives you a clear runway for your campaigns and cuts last-minute stress. Alice North, Senior Marketing Executive at Outdoor365, says, “planning for Black Friday, and the surrounding days, starts in September." Timelines vary. Will Starritt, Cofounder and Co-Director of Urban Rider, says his planning "starts at the beginning of October, covering both product selection and marketing strategy.” He adds, "this year we will spread the campaigns and offers over a whole month. This makes it manageable from all aspects, particularly operationally and for order fulfilment."
Start with last year's analytics, which show your baseline. Pull your top-selling products, main traffic sources, and checkout drop-off points. Add your cart abandonment rate and your split between mobile and desktop shoppers.
Use that data to set this year's targets. Cover revenue, average order value, and the split between new and returning buyers. Add your conversion rate, which is the share of visitors who buy.
A simple timeline keeps your team on track. Count back from Black Friday. Weeks eight to six: plan and set your offers. Weeks five to three: build your tech and campaigns. Weeks two to one: test and prepare to launch. Black Friday week: run your campaigns and monitor results.
"One of the biggest mistakes is discounting too broadly and too deeply without being clear on what you are trying to achieve," Will Starritt explains. "It is very easy to generate a high revenue number over Black Friday while giving away far too much margin. I would avoid putting everything on promotion just because customers expect a deal. Be selective, know which products need help, protect strong sellers where possible, and make sure the discounts you do run serve a clear commercial purpose."
"While discounting for Black Friday will always be the cornerstone, offering a free gift with purchase or free personalisation adds value and makes shopping easier for our customers," Alice North adds. "We also focus beyond just Black Friday itself, extending offers throughout the week before to build our audience."
"A combination of a clear offer, genuine urgency and confidence that the product is actually available tends to turn browsing into buying," Will Starritt observes. "The strongest results have come when the saving is immediately obvious, stock availability is clear, and there is a genuine reason to buy now, such as limited stock, a time-limited offer or early access."
Try tiered offers, like £10 off when you spend £75, or product bundles. These protect your margin better than blanket discounts. They tend to raise your average order value. Set your free shipping threshold a little above your current average order value to encourage larger baskets.
Your site must cope with big traffic spikes. Run a load test at three to five times your normal peak traffic before mid-October. A load test shows you where your site breaks.
Aim for a page load time under two seconds on mobile. Google data shows that shoppers leave 53% of mobile visits if a page takes more than three seconds to load.4
Use a content delivery network (CDN) for files that do not change, such as images and scripts. A CDN stores copies of these files close to your shoppers, so pages load faster. This one step stops many Black Friday slowdowns for small and mid-sized ecommerce stores.
Check that your hosting plan can handle the traffic you expect. Shared hosting plans can struggle with Black Friday spikes, so you may need to upgrade before October. Once your site is ready, test your checkout from start to finish on mobile. That way you won't find problems on the day itself.
A dedicated landing page is a core part of how to prepare for Black Friday ecommerce. It puts all the links to your offers in one place, which helps your search ranking. It makes your campaigns easier to track and gives returning customers a web address to bookmark.
A few key elements help this page turn visitors into buyers. Put a clear headline offer at the top. Add a deadline so shoppers know when the offer ends. List your top product categories so shoppers can find things fast. Show your returns and delivery policy up front to build trust before questions come up.
Publish the page early with a teaser message. This earns links from other sites and early traffic before the discount starts. Keep the same URL each year and leave dates out of the link. This keeps your search ranking.
Most Black Friday traffic comes from mobile devices. According to Salesforce, mobile devices drove 70% of online orders worldwide over Cyber Week 2025.2 Hard-to-use mobile checkouts can cost you sales. Common problems are too many steps, no autofill, no saved payment methods, and no guest checkout option.
Test your checkout on the three most common mobile screen sizes before October. Most ecommerce platforms have a mobile preview mode. Test on real phones to see what shoppers see.
Compress your images and video for mobile. A page that is quick on desktop but slow on mobile will lose a large share of your peak traffic. Check that buttons are easy to tap and that shoppers can read text without zooming.
Guest checkout is one of the most important changes you can make. Forcing shoppers to create an account is a major cause of abandoned carts. Fastlane by PayPal is available to eligible UK merchants. In the checkout flow tested, it sped up checkout by over 36% compared with traditional guest checkout.5 It can pre-fill the details of returning shoppers that Fastlane recognises. This can reduce friction.
Digital wallets, such as PayPal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay, remove the need to type in card details. Typing card details is one of the hardest steps in mobile checkout. If you offer PayPal at checkout, you get the PayPal wallet built in. It gives shoppers a familiar and trusted way to pay.
Remove every optional field from checkout. Ask for address verification, marketing opt-ins, and account creation after the shopper pays. A simple checkout is one of the most effective Black Friday ecommerce tips you can use.
Flexible payment options give customers more choice in how they pay in peak seasons. In a Nielsen survey commissioned by PayPal (February to March 2026), 54% of consumers said BNPL makes them more likely to buy from a small or medium-sized business.6
Will Starrit, Co-founder and Co-Director of Urban Rider
"Not offering buy now pay later options is a missed opportunity," Alice North of Outdoor365 explains. "Over 21% of our customers use it, and we expect this to grow over the Black Friday period as it provides the perfect opportunity to maximise on sales." Outdoor365 reports that its BNPL use has increased by 50% year-on-year. Results vary by merchant. "It has been pivotal in building trust and confidence with our customers," Alice adds. "Not only can they now take advantage of our great Black Friday offers, they can also spread the cost."
PayPal offers Pay in 3 to eligible UK shoppers. For eligible purchases of £20 to £3,000, it splits the basket into three payments over two months, with no interest. You get paid in full at the start, and PayPal takes on the risk that a shopper does not repay, subject to PayPal's terms. If you use PayPal Checkout, Pay in 3 is included with no extra integration, subject to eligibility.
Pay in 30 Days launched in the UK in July 2026. Shoppers pay nothing at checkout and pay in full 30 days later, with no fees and no interest. It is a credit agreement for UK residents aged 18 and over, covers qualifying purchases between £1 and £900, and is subject to status and approval.
Trust and regulation matter. PayPal scored 71% for customer trust in Fairer Finance's Buy Now Pay Later ratings (Spring 2026), which are based on an independent customer poll.7 The FCA now regulates PayPal Pay in 3 and Pay in 30 Days as BNPL products. Both are credit products, so present them as a payment choice, not as a reason to spend more than shoppers planned. Make clear that shoppers should only use them if they can afford the repayments. Both are subject to status and approval, which can include credit and affordability checks. According to WiserNotify, BNPL made up 6.3% of all Black Friday digital sales worldwide in 2025, up 8.9% on the year before.8
Cart recovery is a vital part of Black Friday ecommerce. Try exit intent offers. These are pop-ups or banners that appear when a shopper looks ready to leave. For example, they might move a mouse to close a tab or scroll up on a phone. Offer a small discount or free delivery to win back the cart before they go.
Set up an abandoned cart email sequence. Send emails within one hour, 24 hours, and 48 hours of the shopper leaving. The first email reminds them what is in the basket. The second says stock is low or an offer is ending, but only if that is true. The third can include a small discount if your margin allows.
For higher-value baskets, an SMS reminder can work alongside email, but only if the customer has given consent to receive marketing texts. Check that you also have the right consent or another lawful basis under UK data protection and e-marketing rules before you send email reminders, especially ones that include a discount. Paid retargeting ads show your offers to people who know you, such as site visitors and your email list. Over Black Friday weekend, they can give a good return on investment for some stores, though results vary. Set aside a budget for them.
"Giving our existing customer base early access via email has been very effective," notes Will Starritt. "It rewards loyal customers, creates a sense of exclusivity and allows us to generate meaningful revenue before the wider Black Friday noise really starts."
"This year we'll be delivering more personalised content, using audience segmentation to ensure the right people are getting the right message at the right time," says Alice North of Outdoor365. "Speaking to customers directly about their interests will always build trust and a connection with our brand."
Split your email list into groups. Try previous Black Friday buyers, top-spending customers, and recent browsers who have not bought. Write a message for each group.
Plan a clear schedule. Send a teaser email two weeks out, an early access email to subscribers, a launch email on Black Friday morning, and a last-chance email on Cyber Monday morning. Build your SMS list in October with a dedicated Black Friday opt-in that asks for clear, explicit consent. SMS can suit flash offers and last-chance reminders, as long as shoppers have opted in.
Forecast demand for each product using last year's data. Adjust it for this year's offers. Over-ordering low-margin, high-volume items is a common cash flow trap on Black Friday.
Warehouse space can be hard to find from October. Confirm your cut-off dates with your fulfilment provider in September, while you have time to plan around them.
Show your shipping deadlines on your Black Friday landing page, your checkout page, and your confirmation emails. Late delivery against a date you promised is a common cause of Black Friday refund requests.
Extend your returns policy to at least mid-January for Black Friday purchases. A strict returns policy in peak season puts shoppers off buying.
Show your Pay Later option at the start of the shopper's journey, as well as at checkout. This helps shoppers understand their payment options early. Shoppers weigh price, delivery, and payment flexibility long before they reach the basket. A message on the product page can help more than one at the final step.
"If you're not offering PayPal Pay Later, I think you're missing out on a big trend in how people shop," Will Starritt says. Urban Rider moved Pay Later messaging onto its product pages. Urban Rider reports that its conversion rate rose 8% after the change, and that Pay Later orders now run around 20% higher in value than standard PayPal orders. Other factors may have contributed, and results vary by merchant.9
Richard Tanner, Executive Chairman of Outdoor365 Group
Outdoor365 Group placed Pay Later banners below the Add to Basket button across its five storefronts. Outdoor365 Group reports that Pay Later usage has since risen by around 50% year-on-year, and that Pay Later average transaction value runs about 14% higher than standard purchases. These results are specific to this merchant and may not be typical.10
Add PayPal Pay Later Messaging to your product pages as well as your checkout. Shoppers can plan for flexible payment from the start. Use the messaging as PayPal supplies it so the offer, eligibility and terms stay clear. Present Pay Later as a payment choice, and make clear that shoppers should only use it if they can afford the repayments.
"Rather than immediately sending another discount, we use useful product content and brand-led communication to keep the customer engaged," Will Starritt explains. "If the first experience with us is good and the follow-up feels relevant rather than overly promotional, there is a much better chance they come back at full price later."
"Effective retargeting with personalised content will be the key to retaining new Black Friday customers," Alice North of Outdoor365 adds. "As these customers will have been drawn in by our special offers, we will be highlighting our rewards program and speaking to them directly about the items they purchased during the Black Friday sales."
A buyer who returns before the end of January can be worth more than the margin you gave away on the first discount, depending on your margins and repeat purchase rate. That is why retention can be worth the investment.
Set up a welcome email series for after purchase. Send a thank you email within 24 hours, a product care email within 72 hours, and a recommendation email at seven days. If you have a rewards programme, give Black Friday buyers bonus points for their first purchase. In November, plan a January campaign for your new, warm audience.
A Black Friday checklist can help you get through the busiest shopping period of the year with confidence. Plan ahead, improve your checkout, and keep the customers you work hard to win.
Ready to turn on Pay in 3 and Pay in 30 Days for your store? Add PayPal to your checkout before Black Friday. Already use PayPal? Log in and check that Pay Later messaging shows at checkout. Pay in 3 and Pay in 30 Days are available to eligible UK shoppers, subject to status and approval.