Your team's Black Friday starts going wrong weeks before the first sale

Black Friday starts going wrong long before the first click: in the stock nobody counted, the price that never changed in the system, the artwork that was ready too late and the support team that learns the promotion rules from a customer. This Black Friday checklist lays out the three weeks before Friday, November 27, in task lists ready to paste into Experto, with an estimate for each one.

Before the lists, it's worth understanding why the November rush comes back every year, even for experienced teams. The reason is the queue inside the company, far away from the traffic.

The bottleneck is the queue inside the company

A Black Friday promotion is a queue: each team only starts when the one before it finishes. The path usually looks like this:

1. Purchasing confirms what's already in stock and what's still on its way.
2. Sales sets the discount for each product, with an eye on the margin.
3. Marketing makes the artwork, banners and emails with that price.
4. Whoever runs the website and the checkout enters the prices and sets up the storefront.
5. Customer support learns the rules and prepares the answers.
6. Shipping gets ready for the order volume.

If the stock count runs two days late, the price runs late with it, the artwork comes out at the last minute and support trains the day before. Nobody did anything wrong, and still everything arrives late.

Each link depends on information from the one before: the quantity, the price, the rule. When that information lives in someone's head or in a chat, the next team waits without even knowing it's waiting.

Media and traffic matter, a lot. They bring people to a store that needs to be ready for them. Planning your Black Friday campaign takes care of the storefront outside, while Black Friday prep inside the house tends to go unwatched.

The symptoms show up in the week of the sale

When the internal queue falls behind, the problem shows up in front of the customer, in the worst possible week. The most common ones:

• the banner says 30% off and the system charges 20% off;
• the product in the storefront is sold out but still for sale;
• support learns the free shipping rule from a customer;
• shipping doesn't know how many orders are coming and calls in extra hands at the last minute;
• a store in the chain gets the campaign material on the day it starts.

The first symptom gets expensive. In Brazil, under the Consumer Defense Code, the advertised offer binds the store: if the artwork shows a lower price, the customer can demand that price. Outside Brazil, check your local consumer law.

Almost all of this first goes through the team's group chat, where the question "did the price change yet?" gets lost between storefront photos and stickers.

Why chasing harder doesn't speed up the queue

In the rush, the manager becomes the center of everything: they hand out, ask, check and chase, and the queue starts moving at their pace. Every task has to go through one person, and that person still has their own tasks.

You've seen this one. On the Tuesday of Black Friday week, the manager asks in the group whether the artwork is done, marketing says it's waiting for the price, sales is waiting for the stock count, and whoever counts the stock is covering the checkout. Three hours of messages to find a queue that could have been on screen.

Our post on the manager who hands out every task shows how that turns into a bottleneck. On Black Friday, the effect doubles, because the deadline doesn't stretch.

The queue moves when it's visible. Everyone sees what's left, who has each task and what's about to run late, and each person picks up the next one without waiting to be told.

So who answers for each task? Whoever picked it up. In Experto, the list shows who has each task, and whoever manages follows the team through Black Friday without asking in the group chat.

How to use the Black Friday checklist in Experto

Create a list called Black Friday, share it with your team and paste one block at a time.

1. Click Copy list on the week's block.
2. Open the Black Friday list and paste into the New item field, or press ⌘V on Mac or Ctrl+V on Windows with the list open.
3. Check the preview in Create several items and create the tasks.

Each line becomes a task, a line that starts with a space becomes its description, and Estimate: says how long it takes. The blocks have no dates: set each task's due date, and Experto works out on its own when it needs to start.

Running late? It turns red. The full step by step for pasting is in our tutorial on how to paste multiple tasks at once.

Big team? Create one list per team, such as Purchasing, Marketing and Support, and paste only that team's tasks into each one. In the Organizer, on the web, the lists sit side by side, and the whole week fits on one screen.

3 weeks before: stock, prices and rules

The first week decides what will be sold, for how much and under which rules. The rest of the checklist depends on it.

List the products in the Black Friday sale
 Only what has guaranteed stock or confirmed restocking
Estimate: 2 hours
Count the stock of the listed products
 Check the system number against the shelf
Estimate: 1 working day
Set the discount for each product
 Look at the margin before settling the percentage
Estimate: 4 hours
Write the promotion rules
 Dates, shipping, limit per customer, payment methods and returns
Estimate: 2 hours
Confirm deadlines with suppliers and the carrier
Estimate: 2 hours
Set the team schedule for the week of the sale
 Support, shipping and who covers the checkout
Estimate: 1 hour

The rules you write here become the basis for the artwork and for support's answers. For online stores in Brazil, the e-commerce decree requires the offer's conditions and any restrictions to be clearly shown on the site.

2 weeks before: artwork, website and support

With prices and rules settled, the second week turns the offer into a storefront and prepares whoever will talk to customers.

Make the campaign artwork, banners and emails
 Use the approved prices and rules, no changes afterwards
Estimate: 3 working days
Enter the sale prices on the website and at the checkout
 Schedule the switch for the start time
Estimate: 4 hours
Check that the artwork price matches the system price
 Product by product, on every channel
Estimate: 2 hours
Write support's canned replies
 Shipping, delivery time, returns and the coupon that didn't work
Estimate: 3 hours
Train support on the promotion rules
Estimate: 1 hour
Agree on the expected volume with shipping
 Packaging, labels and overtime
Estimate: 1 hour

Look at the third task. It's the one that prevents the 30% banner with the system at 20%, and it usually isn't on anyone's list.

A rule changed along the way? Whoever manages the account sends a message to the whole team, marks it Important and sees who has read it. An important message stays on screen until the person opens it.

Black Friday week: test and check

In the last week, the team tests, checks and gets everything ready for Friday. New tasks only if something needs fixing.

Place a test order from start to finish
 From cart to confirmation email, with each payment method
Estimate: 1 hour
Check that prices switch at the scheduled time
Estimate: 30 minutes
Set aside packaging and shipping supplies
Estimate: 2 hours
Review the stock of the best sellers
 Take whatever sells out off the storefront
Estimate: 1 hour
Leave the day's plan with whoever is on duty
 Who answers what and who to call if the site goes down
Estimate: 1 hour

Some checks repeat every day that week, like stock and unanswered messages. For those, set up a list that comes back on its own, as shown in our guide to daily, weekly and monthly routines.

On Friday, the list becomes the on-duty script. Each task shows who has it, and nobody needs to ask who ended up with what.

After Friday: returns, exchanges and lessons

For the customer, the sale ends on Friday. For the store, the queue keeps going for another week or two.

In Brazil, under the same Consumer Defense Code, anyone who buys online can withdraw within 7 days of receiving the product. The same e-commerce decree gives the store up to five days to answer questions, complaints and cancellation requests that come in through online support.

Set aside the stock for returns and exchanges
Estimate: 1 hour
Answer return and withdrawal requests
 Through the same channel the customer used
Estimate: 30 minutes
Check the orders that haven't shipped yet
Estimate: 1 hour
Write down what was missing, what was left over and what ran late
 It's the starting point for next year's checklist
Estimate: 1 hour

Once the dust settles, look at the sales numbers calmly. Together with the list of what ran late, they show where the queue got stuck.

Chains with several stores: each store sees its part

In a chain of stores or franchises, the queue has one more link: headquarters needs every store to do its part on the same day.

In Experto, each store becomes a sub-account, and the manager joins as a guest, for free and without taking a seat. They only see their store's tasks and complete them when done, like setting up the window display or changing the price tags. After the date, the same setup helps with franchise standardization all year.

When you paste, write #StoreName on each line, and each task arrives tagged with the right store. The franchise management template has this path ready, and the Experto for franchises page shows the other use cases.

Frequently asked questions

When should you start preparing for Black Friday?

For the internal queue, three weeks before the date cover stock, prices, artwork and support. Buying merchandise and negotiating with suppliers start much earlier, along with your calendar of key dates for the year.

What can't be missing from a Black Friday checklist?

Checked stock, the same price in the artwork and in the system, the promotion rules in writing for support and a returns plan for the following week. The rest of the checklist exists so these four things are ready in time.

How do you split Black Friday tasks across the team?

Keep the list shared with the team and let each person pull the task they'll do with Pull and Push. Nobody has to hand things out, and everyone sees who has each one.

Does the checklist work for a physical store?

It does. Swap entering prices on the website for price tags and the window display, and the test order for a test at the checkout. The queue is the same.

Only a few weeks to go until November 27. Create your free account, free forever for up to 2 members, paste the first block of the Black Friday checklist and watch your team's queue move where everyone can see it.