The Black Friday Playbook

Checklist

1. When do you count inventory?

   The goal is to have an accurate count of your inventory by lock-in while leaving enough time to address and replenish any inventory that is missing or needs to be on hand for your campaign.

2. Who is counting — your own team, or a third party booked in advance?

   Third-party counters book out months ahead but will deliver an impartial count without sacrificing hours from your existing team.

3. Can you prove the stock is sellable?

   Before deciding on the final counts, make sure that all inventory is in sellable condition. Returns mixed back into new stock is the common failure. This brings adds extra costs when the product is shipped back a second time because a customer received a used item.

4. For anything not moving, do you know why it is not moving?

   Before deciding which items get marked down, verify everything related to the product to see if the reasons for it not selling are solely product related. Sometimes adjusting copy and assets fixes a problem that a deeper discount does not.

Checklist

1. How many new SKUs are you launching, and is that number final?

   Customers are already overhwlemed with choices with competing retailers, adding more SKUs can lead to decision fatigue and customer attrition.

2. Are you holding back a reserve, and how much of the run?

   When a new limited-edition product is sold through, you have no options for the cases where a replacement may be needed. Holding back a reserve ensures you’re prepared to delight your customers in the event of a missing/damaged product. Roughly 10% is the working figure to set aside.

3. Who inside the company knows the reserve exists?

   Having a reserve is smart, but overpromising the reserve will be the final straw for customers who have already been burned. If your support staff all know there are 20 extra, they're going to promise them, and you have to have a way of controlling how many are being promised as replacements.

Checklist

1. What is still in transit, and what is the confirmed landing date?

   Prematurely counting incoming inventory as inventory on-hand creates the perfect set-up for everything going wrong. An item is not inventory until it has been fully integrated in the warehouse and able to be picked.

2. What happens to the campaign if that shipment lands late?

   A late container will torpedo your Black Friday. Inventory that is available by lock-in is your confirmed holiday inventory, anything else that comes in is just gravy.

3. Who replenishes an empty pick face during the weekend, and how fast?

   Partial shipments due to missing items are actually in stock will occur if stock is not updated before the boxed are empty. Creating a workflow that anticpates replenishment will avoid delays when the entire operation needs to wait for more product.

4. Do pickers know reserve stock exists, rather than reporting out of stock?

   Pickers who can’t locate an item confirmed to be in stock need clear escalation paths to notify leadership of missing SKUs with the ability to pause to ensure accurcy instead of being encourgaed to just pick whatever they can.

Checklist

1. Do you have enough boxes, mailers and filler for peak volume?

   Your packaging configurations must match your sellable inventory with considerations given to increased order sizes during the holidays.

2. How many more items will your customers be buying during the holidays?

   An easy way to increase your shipping costs is not having the right sized pakaging and having to split shipments just to deliver one order.

3. Are you offering gift-wrapping or add-ons, and has the warehouse actually run it at volume?

   Adding a new offering for the holidays like gift-wrapping that delays orders from getting out will add uneeded complexity to your assemply line.

Checklist

1. Do you know the breaking point of each link in your stack?

   Each and every software, platform, site and server from browse to checkout to returns must be load-tested 20x.

2. Has your checkout flow been tested for speed?

   Stuck adding items to cart, unable to enter payment information, wheels turning as they wait for a order confirmation: a customer unable to checkout quickly, will abandon the cart and company they lose trust as they attempt to place an order. Does your Shopify checkout match the speed of your website?

3. How long is an item held in a cart before it is returned to the site?

   Consider whether the business-as-usual duration is enough for sale season browsing.

4. Will you have a waiting room for huge, limited drops?

   Excited customers, great new product? A recipe for disaster if the website crashes. If there is a risk of selling out quick, awaiting room will allow customers to purchase in waves and keep your website resilient during the rush.

5. Do you have a database outage contingency?

   Database errors happen when the systems are taxed. If a system goes offline  “Order received, verifying stock” will prevent losing sales already in the system and not scare of customers that get out of stock messages without warning.

Checklist

1. Have you increased your fraud monitoring thresholds for increased holiday spending?

   Chances are, a bottleneck will form in your manual fraud review process as the number of flagged transactions are higher than ever

2. Are you prepared for fake orders?

   Black Friday is the perfect time for a competitor who wants drown you to attack your system by placing hundreds of orders for your product, only to cancel them and wreck your fulfillment process. It happens.

3. How often are you winning chargebacks?

   The easiest way to lose a chargeback is not to respond. Does your team know what is needed to win a chargeback? Timely and detailed chargeback responses will mitigate the risk of losing sales. Chargebacks are the most stubborn and costly problem an e-commerce company faces. Tackle them hard.

4. What is the mechansim for alerting your support team that a customer has filed a chargeback?

   It happens all too often. A customer is given a double refund, one from the support team and another when they file a chargeback just because there is no source of truth between your fraud monitoring and your support team. Your support team are the ones speaking to your customer. Make sure they have the tool they need to stop the bleeding.

5. Who owns your carrier claims process?

   FedEX, USPS, and UPS will often lose or damage shipments and not take responsability unless a claim is filed. Asking your customer to file carrier claims on shipments they didn’t recieve is a sure way to lose them forever. And failing to file claims for a shipment that was lost by the carrier? You lose three times - loss of product, loss of shippings costs and the cost of shipping a replacement order.

Checklist

1. Which items will be eligible for discount?

   Protect your margin. Will your new Black Friday skus be eligible to be discounted if you are running a site wide sale, or have a coupon code.?

2. Is it clear how your customers recieve a discount?

   Are the listed prices after discount is applied or before? Is there a further discount after product are added to cart?

3. Will customers be able to stack discounts?

   What does this mean for your bottom line? Customers are looking to get the best deals during Black Friday. If they think they can get lower proces by stacking discounts/codes and are unable to, you will be sure to see this confusion drive your ticket volume.

4. Are there limits to how many skus of new product can a customer purchase?

   Making certain your customers understand limits of new product will prevent a surge of messages to customer support.

Checklist

1. When do your VIP customers get notified of your campaign?

   Imagine being a devoted customer only to be treated the same as others. This time of the year, reward their dedication is a preview of the campiagn or even early access to it.

2. Do you segment your customer groups?

   Sending all of your customers the same copy and CTA can make it get lost in the fray. Targeted messaging for those that have shopped with you before can make all the difference of whether they shop with you again.

3. Is there complete alignment between how your campaign is presented on Instagram vs. on your website vs. email drip?

   Check for consistency throughout the campaign and avoid confusion at all costs.

4. Are your customers expecting another campaign for Cyber Monday?

   Slow Black Friday sales? Your customers may be holding off waiting for something better coming on Cyber Monday. While they wait they may decide to spend their holiday budget elsewhere. You may find benefit in keeping surprises up your sleeves, but make sure your weigh the costs and benefits of speculation and suspense.

Checklist

1. When will you stop running ads?

   Waiting for your ad spend to run dry before you stop? While you’re double checking, make sure your social media ads aren’t being run after the campaign is over or worse yet —advertising an item that has been sold out.

2. How often will your customers be emailed during Black Friday weekend?

   Reminders are good, but too many promo emails and your customers start unsubscribing.

3. How do your customers know when your campaign begins and ends?

   Your customer support will become the bearer of bad news, if your customers miss out. Make sure to publish both dates and times so your customer is prepared and shops effectively.

Checklist

1. What is the breaking point of your WMS and connectors?

   To find out, run off-peak stress-tests with test orders at 10x. Test for wifi load, scan for latency in your database, inventory locking, etc. Check connectors for bottlenecks that will appear with 10x volume, and check integration latency with 3rd parties (i.e. carriers).

2. What is your inventory reservation latency?

   Stress on your systems and connectors will extend inventory latency and prevent your inventory from locking.

3. Where does your warehouse hygiene currently stand?

   Pickers need visual cues that say: this is the stuff that's moving. Make everything as easy and clear for them as possible. Don’t overlook the benefits of being explicit with warehouse hygiene: colored tape, promo SKUs at the front, non-sale stock to the back.

4. How many scanners can operate effectively before there is strain on your wi-fi?

   Seems unlikely, but it happens. Network congestion from high device density increases latency, interference, sropped connections.

5. What is your scanner latency on 10x volume?

   Every second your pickers are waiting for their scanners to let them scan the next item adds up quickly and stalls the picking.

Checklist

1. What are your volume caps with your carriers?

   Are you using the same carrier for standard and express shipping? Does your carrier pick-up both at the same time?

2. What is the contingency plan in case of missed or partial pick-ups?

   Often times a carrier will be over commited prior to arriving at your warehouse. What is the plan in case they can not pick up everything you have designated to ship? Will your carrier dispatch secondary pick-ups in case of overflow?

3. What is your cut-off for Holiday orders to arrive in time for Xmas?

   There is nothing worse than receiving an intended gift after the holidays. Create a buffer for your holiday shipping.

4. When do you shut-off express shipping options for the holidays?

   Clearly highlight at checkout which shipping methods will arrive on time for Xmas. Consider the viability of express shipping the last few days before the holidays only if operations have been rock solid up until then.

5. What is your volume discount?

   They need you as much as you need them and there are choices you can make to ensure you have the best rate the more you ship.

6. What is the contigency plan if you need to use a different carrier?

   How quickly can you replace your current carrier if need be? Will the terms you agreed upon with your secondary carier still be in affect during Black Friday?

Checklist

1. How confident are you with your service level commitments?

   Review agreements for hidden fees, shrinkage allowances, contingency plans and overflow labor strategy and confirm updates to performance metrics specific to Black Friday.

2. What about equipment commitments?

   Easily overlooked are warehousing equipment like scanners which are used for multiple accounts and will create a lack of resources if not managed correctly. You may be paying the 3PL to be staffed for the holidays but your staff needs the equipment to work.

3. What will your 3PL do in the case of a surge?

   What will trigger this surge plan? You want a preset playbook not a desperate hour to hour scramble.

4. What is your 3PL staffing mix for Black Friday weekend?

   The right combination of seasoned staff with seasonal/temporary staff will be crucial to prevent unexpected drops in fulfillment. Look for a 70/30 blend.

Checklist

1. Is your customer support team schedule flexible enough to quickly reallocate to contact channels in case of volume surges?

   In times of increased volume during the holidays, customers behaviour will change. Your support queues will ebb and flow to this change in customer behaviour. Being able to move agents from one queue to another allows you to handle these surges.

2. Does your support team know what to offer customers that are impacted by shipping/delivery errors?

   Having a clear playbook for quick rememdiation during the holidays gets your customers replacement product when needed without causing them increased stress, and creates an opportunity to wow your customers and rebuild trust when things go wrong

3. Has your customer support team schedule been communicated for all of Q4 and early January?

   You will invariably get more absenteeism during Q4. Early scheduling helps avoid any unforeseen conflicts that will prevent full coverage of your support channels. This is as important for BPO as it is for your in-house team.

4. What will your customers receive when you encounter service issues?

   Pre-written messages and other proavtive automated messages (i.e. shipping delays) will come in handy for the worst-case scenarios. Making sure your customers are notified proactively will prevent surges in incoming messages and phone calls.

5. Is your team empowered to fully resolve customer issues without needing to escalate?

   The more hoops your customer needs to jump through and the longer they need to wait will erode trust and increase frustration. The cost of quick effective resolutions will always be less costly than losing your customer.

Checklist

1. When is your support team fully trained on new product + discount details?

   Using the lock-in period to train your staff off on new products and when and how discounts can be applied will eliminate confusion during Black Friday. Your support team will be answering product and sale questions constantly, making sure they don’t need to escalate to find an answer will allow your queues to be managed efficiently.

2. Is there an overflow message for phone/chat?

   When a customer can’t get through to your support team is there a way of offering them a call back? Repeated calls from customers unable to get through will artfifically inflate your contact volume and result in inaccurate staffing.

3. Are high risk messages priortized in your ticketing queue?

   By tagging certain keywords, urgent emails that threaten your reputation and highlight severe operational issues get filtered to the top. By addressing them quickly, you can mitigate risk and loss.

Checklist

1. What is the deadline for them to be fully trained at the level of seasoned staff?

   Hiring a team that isn’t able to perform at full effiency at the time you need it, only ramping up after Black Friday will be costly and increase errors at the most crucial time.

2. What is your redundancy plan for hiring?

   Hiring exactly the staff you need without planning for redunancy will invariably result to understaffing the moment there is holiday attrition — which happens more often than not.

3. What is your overtime contingency?

   You may need your team to punch in for few extra hours a day to handle volume. Knowing your labor laws and how overtime impacts hourly pay will prepare you when you need that extra push or whether you decide to keep the overflow to the next day.

4. Will you offer incentives for excellent performance?

   Seasonal staff are the least incentivized people on your team. Making sure they know how to exceed expectations and earn perks for good perfomance will create buy-in that will drive your operations. If you’re looking for great new staff in the coming year, let them know how they can turn their seasonal job to a permanent one.

Checklist

1. What is the deadline for them to be fully trained at the level of seasoned staff?

   Use the lock-in period as on-the-job training for your seasonal staff, and keep your existing team as backup. This gives you a way to work on efficiency and quality simultaneously, while ramping-up in time for Black Friday.

2. Will your seasonal staff get full access to systems as seasoned staff?

   If your seasonal staff will not have full access (i.e. the ability to edit orders, give refunds) due to security concerns, make sure they have a clear swim lane for resolution that doesn’t bottleneck escalation.

3. Will you hire/promote someone to manage your seasonal staff?

   If your support team increases by 30% for Q4, your staff’s management needs to as well. Make sure your new managers know how to mentor and train your seasonal staff as well as what their expectations are as managers both during and after the holiday season.

4. Does your seasonal staff have a clear hiring term?

   Want to protect your Glassdoor? Having a clear-cut hiring term and making it clear when and how often you’ll be cycling off staff as the season winds down will prevent employee dissatisfaction and attrition.

5. How does your seasonal support integrate with your existing team?

   Create mentorship systems and SME (subject matter experts) to guide your seasonal staff without needing them to escalate tickets.

Checklist

1. Who is on-call for each department?

   Every department, even the ones that aren’t customer facing (like finance or product) need someone on call for quick remediation. Best practices also include having frequent touchbases with your on-call team throughout the weekend as well as rotating on-call staff as to not burn-out your team.

2. Who is monitoring operational dashboards?

   This is different than your on-call staff. Key members of your team are monitoring traffic and volume in order to make game time adjustments. This is more than just daily management, it takes foresight and communication to make sure eveyrthing goes right. The most common mistake is only having the operations team aware of the operational issues, leaving marketing and customer support in the dark.

3. What are the escalation paths for every department?

   Not everyone who is monitoring Black Friday will be prepared or trained to manage an emergency. Having a clear escalation path means no one overreacts or underreacts.

4. What triggers will alert you to emergency situations?

   Create and then test triggers like order volume, systems being online, but also things like sales targets not being met as pertinent information.

5. What is the social media monitoring schedule?

   This means not only replying to frustrated (and delighted) customers but full coverage for applicable timezones and being able to surface issues to leadership immediately.

Checklist

1. Are there pre-written customer facing messages in case something goes wrong?

   When you need to notify your customers of a service disruption or operstions issue that is preventing them from receiving their order as expected, creating new assets and copy will add further delay that can be prevented. Knowing what these messages are in advance as well as how they will be deployed puts you one step ahead.

2. What triggers the pre-written messaging?

   Now that you have your pre-written messaging, knowing when to deploy which message, and also not doing so prematurely or too late make the message clear and effective.

3. How will you be notifying customers of sold-out products?

   A good problem to have is selling out of your stock but running ads for stock that is no longer available or having landing pages for sold out stock confuses and frustrates customers.

4. How will you be notifying customers of shipping delays?

   Having an email plan that gives customers timely indication of shipment during business-as-usual is common practice. But when customers are expecting products for the holidays where every delayed day matters, a different approach is necessary, and makes a big difference in preventing chargebacks and support volume.

5. Do you have a back-up in case your campaign is unsuccessful ?

   If your campaign doesn’t do as well as expected, having a back-up plan ready to deploy can make up for a lackluster Black Friday. A deeper discount is rarely the right move, consider conditional sales instead (i.e. spend over x amount and get X% off).

Checklist

1. Will you offer exchanges as well as returns?

   Offering exchanges keeps your customer in your ecosystem but heavily complicates your operations. For customers requesting a variant (i.e. different size or color) in exchange, make sure you have stock in hand before making that an option for them to minimize further returns in limbo.

2. How soon is a customer credited for a return after sending an item back?

   What payment method are the returns credited back to if they are returned by the gift recipient and not the purchaser? Check legal implications for store credits and clearly communicate how long they are good for.

3. What is your staffing increase for your returns department after Black Friday weekend?

   Your pickers will soon have less to do and your returns will need to be processed quicker to get sellable product back in inventory. Consider cross-training pickers on returns that can handle surges of returns when the time comes.

4. How quickly will returns of new Black Friday product be back on pick shelves?

   Fast-track by tagging returns of new product to allow them to be processed back into inventory first. Coupled with a gameplan on how this inventory reappears on the website after it sells out will eliminate backstock of product that was intended to sell out.

5. How long is your return window for Holiday purchases?

   Many products won’t be gifted until the last week of December. Offering an extended window for returns gives your customers and gift recipients peace of mind if a gift doesn’t work for them.

Checklist

1. How will you incentivize new customers to keep shopping with you after their Black Friday purchase?

   Simply adding your new customers to your newsletter or email drip is the bare minimum. If you knocked it out of the park, highlight the wins and consider loyalty / referral programs or offer a discount in the coming year.

2. Will you be running any other promotions after Black Friday weekend until the end of the year?

   Thanksgiving and Christmas may be your last push of the season, but conider what additional promotions will do to your operations if things haven’t been running smoothly.