Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2026: How to Get Your Small Business Website Ready
Black Friday is Friday 27 November and Cyber Monday is Monday 30 November. Plan your offer, check your website and schedule your changes now, so the busy days run smoothly.
Black Friday is Friday 27 November and Cyber Monday is Monday 30 November. Plan your offers and schedule your website changes now, so the busy days run smoothly.
Black Friday 2026 falls on Friday 27 November. Cyber Monday follows on Monday 30 November. The big retailers start early, with deals from Monday 16 November and full sales from Monday 23 November. Your customers will browse for two weeks, not two days.
You do not need to match the big names on price. You do need a working website, an offer to suit your business and changes set up in advance. This post shows you how.
Key dates for your diary
- Monday 16 November: early deals begin at the larger retailers
- Monday 23 November: Black Week starts and most major sales launch
- Friday 27 November: Black Friday
- Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 November: weekend deals continue
- Monday 30 November: Cyber Monday
- Saturday 5 December: Small Business Saturday
Most shoppers now buy on their phones. Industry estimates put mobile at over 65% of Black Friday transactions in 2025. Check your website on your own phone before you promote anything.
Decide your offer first
Pick one clear offer. Decide the start and end dates. Decide which products or services the offer covers and how much stock or capacity you have. Write the offer in one sentence. If the sentence runs long, simplify the offer.
Keep your prices honest. Show a "was" price only if you charged the same price recently. Use a countdown timer only if the deadline is real. UK consumer rules cover misleading prices and false urgency, and they apply to small businesses.
Small business ideas without deep discounts
You compete on service and personal attention, not on price. Here are five ideas to consider.
Bundles. Group products into gift sets. Customers see value and your margin holds.
Early access. Email your list 24 hours before the public sale. Subscribers feel rewarded and you see demand early.
Added value. Offer free delivery, a free upgrade or a free consultation instead of a percentage off.
Gift vouchers and prepaid packages. Service businesses such as hairdressers, trades and coaches sell vouchers now and receive bookings in the new year.
Limited availability. Cap the offer at a set number of orders or appointments. Only do this when the limit is real.
Small Business Saturday on 5 December gives you a second moment to promote a local offer, so keep a few ideas back for the day.
Check your website before Black Week
Finish these jobs by Friday 20 November.
- Update WordPress, your theme and your plugins, then test the site. Avoid new updates until the sales end. Our WordPress support covers this for you.
- Take a full backup and confirm you know how to restore the backup. Our website security service includes backups.
- Test your checkout on a phone, a tablet and a computer. Place a real order and refund the order.
- Check payment methods, delivery options and confirmation emails.
- Test page speed. Compress large images and remove plugins you no longer use.
- Ask your host whether your hosting plan handles extra visitors.
- State your returns policy and your Christmas delivery cut-off dates clearly.
- Set up uptime monitoring, so you hear about a problem before your customers do.
Schedule your changes in advance
Do not plan to edit your website at midnight on Friday. Set changes up now and let them go live on their own.
Sale prices. WooCommerce lets you set start and end dates for the sale price of each product. Set the start for the first minute of your sale and the end for the last.
Pages and blog posts. WordPress publishes pages and posts at a date and time you choose. Write your offer page and your sale announcement now, then schedule both.
Banners and popups. Many page builders and popup plugins let you set start and end dates. Switch your Black Friday banner to a Cyber Monday banner automatically on Monday morning.
Emails and social posts. Schedule your newsletters and social posts for the whole week in one sitting.
Time zone. Open Settings, then General in WordPress, and check the site time zone is London. A wrong time zone starts your sale at the wrong hour.
Caching. Caching plugins and host caches store old versions of pages. A cached page keeps showing the old banner after a scheduled change goes live. Ask your host or your web team to confirm the cache clears when your changes start.
The end of the sale. Schedule the end as carefully as the start. Prices return to normal, banners come down and the sale page shows a friendly message. An expired offer on display frustrates customers.
Run a test first. Schedule a banner a few minutes ahead and watch the banner appear and disappear.
Keep things steady during the sales
Look at your website every morning. Check orders, stock levels and enquiries. Update stock levels quickly so you never sell what you do not have. Reply to customer questions the same day.
Do not change code or install plugins mid-sale. A small change on a busy day causes the largest problems.
After the weekend
Remove old banners and reset prices on Tuesday 1 December. Review your analytics. Look at which pages brought visitors, which offers sold and where customers left the checkout. Email your new customers to say thank you. Write down what worked, so next year starts with a plan. Christmas follows quickly, so add your final delivery dates to the site.
How we help
We host and support small business websites, and we build online shops on WooCommerce and Shopify. We check hosting, test checkouts, schedule banners and price changes and clear caches at the right time. If you want us to look over your website before Black Week, get in touch and we will see what fits. Our guide to promoting your small business online without spending a fortune has more ideas for the weeks around the sales.
Call us on 01793 239 239 or email [email protected].
