In 2025, Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) sales reached $11.8 billion and $14.25 billion respectively, making them two of the most profitable shopping days in history. Now that the 2026 BFCM period is just around the corner, small online businesses are starting to think about how to make the most of this potentially lucrative period.
Over the past ten years I have run several successful online stores, some of which relied heavily on BFCM sales to generate a significant portion of their annual turnover. Below, I’ll share six proven methods for making more profit during peak trading season.
Prepare marketing materials
Preparing marketing materials well in advance of the BFCM period is essential to sales success. During this period, most businesses will be much busier than usual; this means more order picking, packing and shipping, more customer requests and more time spent managing inventory.
Don’t make your life harder by spending hours creating marketing materials amidst the chaos. Planning ahead for key discounts and offers means you can build your BFCM marketing assets well before the rush.
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Marketing Content |
Preparation |
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Marketing Emails |
Prepare email copy and images, and create a compelling subject line. Most email marketing platforms also allow you to schedule emails, meaning you can set them to send and focus entirely on other things during BFCM. |
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Social Media Content |
Create images and videos that promote your key propositions and write captions to accompany them. You can also schedule them in advance, but be sure to register during the BFCM period to interact with your audience in the comments section and answer any questions. |
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Website Resources |
Create website banners and other assets needed to drive traffic to your deals. They may not launch before the launch date, but being ready and waiting will mean they could be available for sale as soon as the offers go live. |
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Physical assets |
Create flyers for ordering, notifying customers of an upcoming sale. |
Create product packages
Greater savings provide greater opportunities to increase sales to customers. This works well during BFCM for two reasons.
Firstly, many people are looking for gifts during this period. If you can offer gift hunters a selection of products within their budget, it will save them time looking elsewhere. By setting packages by cost category, you can also make things easier for people working on a specific budget. This is an easy way to make money by making people’s lives easier.
Bundling products can be especially helpful for existing customers or those who have been thinking about purchasing from you for a while. Offering multiple products at a similar price to an individual product that someone bought before can make people feel like they’re getting a good deal. It can also be a smart way to get people to try new products that they might not have thought about before.
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Create product packages exclusively for the BFCM period. Categorize them by price, such as packages under $20, under $50, and under $100. Make sure these packages are visible on your website when people view it and promote them through social media.
Launch flash sales
Running one continuous sale during the BFCM period can yield good results, but smart online store owners know that they can take advantage of the hype around this period by running flash sales.
This approach can also help you sell certain products that are more profitable or at the back of your line.
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Offer a flat, site-wide discount that runs from Black Friday morning until Cyber Monday night. Then offer an hourly sale on specific products to get an increased discount during peak trading. Use social media and other marketing channels to publicize your upcoming sale and let people know it’s going on.
Encourage large orders
One of the biggest challenges during BFCM is getting people to visit your site when all your competitors are struggling to do the same. Most small businesses focus entirely on getting that click, but fail to maximize the amount of profit they make from each visitor.
If you’ve done the hard work of getting someone to visit your online store, incentivizing large orders can be a smart way to increase your average order value (AOV).
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Incentivize high volume orders with tiered discounts, such as 10% off orders under $20, 15% off orders over $20, and 20% off orders over $50. You could also try offering a free gift on orders over a certain amount, or offering it as an alternative to larger discounts.
Team up with other businesses
Competing with business giants like Amazon may seem like an impossible task for a small business, but there are countless people who would rather spend their hard-earned money with you.
During BFCM, it may be a smart move to team up with other small businesses in your area, leveraging each other’s audiences to reach more people who want to buy from small, independent businesses.
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Team up with another local business that shares your target audience but doesn’t compete with you directly. Develop a joint promotion strategy, such as joint social media posts or even combining products from both companies.
Give away VIP early access
We’ve all been there, see something we want to buy, wait patiently to see if it goes on sale on Black Friday, only to find out it’s sold out within the first few hours of the sale.
Solving this problem not only increases loyalty, but can also increase sales.
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Create a dedicated email list for early access to your BFCM sales and promote it before Black Friday.
Then set up a hidden page so your products can be purchased at a discounted price before they appear on the rest of the website. Send an email 2-24 hours before the site sale starts, giving list members early access via a link on the page.
Make the most of Black Friday and Cyber Monday
The BFCM period can make a huge difference to any small business. However, failure to prepare for this can lead to stress, confusion and leaving a lot of money on the table.
Taking the time to plan your strategy before BFCM will have a huge impact on your ability to make the most of this potentially profitable period. This guide is a great starting point; Use your experience and unique understanding of your niche to choose the methods that will work best for you.