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Shopify for Handmade Goods: How to Sell Craft Items in 2026

You make things by hand. Now you want a place to sell them where the brand, the customers, and the profit stay with you. Shopify for handmade goods does that well, whether you pour soy candles or stitch leather wallets. As a Shopify agency, we’ve worked with merchants who now run successful businesses. Many of them started by selling handmade goods from home. Shopify even has a dedicated page for selling handcrafts. But is it worth it? For most makers who want their own brand and customer list, yes. Here’s why, and how to set it up. Can You Sell Handmade Items on Shopify? Yes. Shopify has no rule that limits handmade products. You can sell one-of-a-kind pieces, small batches, personalized orders, craft kits, and even digital patterns from the same store. Shopify is a store builder, so there's no handmade review process at all. You can mix handmade pieces with supplies or printed merch if it fits your brand. A few limits still apply. Shopify's Acceptable Use Policy bans certain products in every store. Some handmade categories also carry their own rules where you sell. Cosmetics, candles, food, and children's items often need specific labels, safety testing, or permits. Check your local rules before launch. Our guide to laws and regulations every Shopify seller should know is a good starting checklist. Why Shopify for Handmade Goods Works in 2026 Shopify works for handmade goods because you keep control of your brand, your margins, and your buyers. You pay a monthly plan and card processing. Use Shopify Payments, and there's no extra transaction fee on top. Demand is there too. IMARC Group puts the US handicrafts market at USD 372.05 billion in 2026. They credit part of that growth to shoppers who want unique, handmade, and artisan products. Here's what makes the platform practical for makers right now: Shopify now allows up to 2,048 variants per product for every merchant. Size, color, finish, and engraving combos can all live on one product page. Shopify POS lets you sell at craft fairs and pop-up markets using the same stock count as your website. Since March 2026, Shopify's Agentic Storefronts can show products from eligible stores inside ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Google's AI Mode. You manage it all from your Shopify admin. Every buyer's email belongs to you. Repeat orders don't depend on a marketplace algorithm. Does Shopify Make Products for You? No. Shopify doesn't make, stock, or ship products. It runs your storefront, checkout, payments, and orders. Making the product is on you or a production partner you choose. You have three practical routes: Make everything yourself. Every piece is truly handmade, and your brand story rests on it. Add print on demand for extras. Apps like Printify and Printful print and ship items such as totes or mugs after an order comes in. Shopify itself doesn't print or ship them. Keep these separate from your handmade line so buyers know what they're getting. Stock other brands with Shopify Collective. If you're eligible, you can sell products from other Shopify brands. Someone else still makes them. A merchant who wanted to open a handmade Shopify store A year ago, a merchant came to us who cut and stitched leather wallets by hand in a spare room after work. He'd sold a few to friends and had a small Etsy shop. His first question on our call was simple: "Does Shopify make the wallets, or do I?" We told him Shopify would run the store and he'd keep doing the making. Next, we looked at his plan. He wanted to launch with 30 designs in six leather colors. Making 180 combinations by hand would have meant months of work before his first sale. So we suggested a leaner launch: Five core designs. Initials embossing as a paid option on each product page. A clear "made to order, ships in 5 to 7 days" note near the Add to Cart button. We kept his Etsy shop open for discovery and connected it to Shopify with a sync app. For the branded totes he wanted at local markets, we pointed him to a print-on-demand partner. His launch was smaller than he first pictured. But it was also a store he could run alone, with promises he could keep to his customers. How to Start Selling Handmade Items on Shopify Start small, price for your time, and build product pages that show how each piece is made. The six steps below follow the order we use when we set up a handmade store for a client. 1. Pick a focused first collection Launch with a handful of pieces you can make well and repeat. A tight catalog is easier to photograph, price, and restock. Add new designs once you know what sells. 2. Price for your time, not just materials Add up materials, packaging, and your hours at a fair hourly rate. On top of that, add overhead, platform fees, and your profit margin. Many new makers skip the labor time and end up working for free. If the final price feels high for the customers, your photos and story need to show why it's worth it. 3. Choose your Shopify plan Most makers start on the Basic plan. In the US, it's $29 a month billed yearly or $39 billed monthly, and prices vary by country. Upgrade later when your sales justify lower card rates. Read our guide to Shopify pricing plans, which breaks down each tier. 4. Pick a theme built for a craft store A Shopify craft store needs room for stories, close-up photos, and process shots. Shopify's free Craft theme was made for this, with sections designed to bring craftsmanship to life. Here's our walkthrough of the Shopify Craft theme. Horizon, Shopify's newer free theme, is a solid pick if you want a more modern base. 5. Write product pages that show the making Handmade buyers want to see the hands behind the product. Show the process, the materials, the exact size, and care instructions. Say upfront that each piece varies slightly. Natural light and a plain background go a long way. Use the words buyers actually search for in product titles and descriptions. "Hand-thrown ceramic mug" is much better than "Homemade Mug" every time. Our Shopify SEO guide walks through the rest. 6. Set up personalization and made-to-order Add custom text fields, swatches, or file uploads so buyers can personalize their order. Our guide on adding product personalization in Shopify compares Shopify's own options with apps. If you make in batches, set up preorders on Shopify and show the production time on every product page. Adding clear lead times stops most "where's my order?" emails from customers. One last thing before launch. Weigh each item packed, not bare, so your shipping rates come out right. A handwritten thank-you note costs almost nothing and makes the order feel personal. Shopify vs Etsy for Handmade Sellers Etsy gives you instant traffic. Shopify gives you ownership. Most growing makers end up using both. Etsy's reach is real. The marketplace reported about 88 million active buyers in its Q3 2026 shareholder letter. You pay for that reach on every order, though. In the US, Etsy charges a 6.5% transaction fee, a $0.20 listing fee, and payment processing of 3% plus $0.25. Shopify and Etsy Fee at a Glance FeeEtsyShopify (Basic plan)Monthly planNone$29 billed yearly or $39 monthlyListing fee$0.20 per listingNoneTransaction fee6.5% of the order totalNone with Shopify PaymentsPayment processing3% plus $0.25Card rate set by your plan On Shopify, you pay a plan fee plus card processing. The tradeoff is that you bring your own traffic through search, social, email, and in-person sales. Read more about the Etsy vs. Shopify comparison to choose between the two. Our guide on how to integrate Etsy with Shopify also covers how to sync both platforms. 3 Handmade Shopify Stores to Learn From These three handmade Shopify stores sell very different crafts, and each one does something worth copying. Popov Leather: handmade leather goods Popov Leather makes belts, wallets, and bags by hand in its workshop in Nelson, British Columbia. It started as a basement hobby with early sales on Etsy. Today, a full workshop team sells through its own Shopify store. Most wallets can be laser-engraved with a name or initials. Every piece carries a lifetime guarantee, and customer photo reviews back up the quality. East Fork: handmade pottery East Fork makes pottery in Asheville, North Carolina, with regional materials. Their pottery is made by humans and reduction-fired in Asheville. Their product pages help buyers know exactly where each item comes from. The company always sells its standard colors but releases limited-edition seasonal colors to keep customers coming back for more. Pura Vida Bracelets: artisan-made jewelry Pura Vida Bracelets began in 2010, when two friends met bracelet makers in Costa Rica and chose to partner with them. Handmade string bracelets are still the heart of the brand, which moved from Magento to Shopify Plus as it grew. The strategy that works for them is the monthly Bracelet Club subscription, which turns one-time buyers into repeat customers. Getting Your Handmade Business Live on Shopify Shopify for handmade goods works best when you treat your store as a home base. Etsy, markets, and social media can feed it, but your store holds the brand and the customer list. Start with a small collection, price for your time, and let your product pages tell the story. Rather spend your hours making than configuring? Talk to our experts who can handle the Shopify store setup while you focus on the craft. FAQs 1. Is Shopify good for handmade goods? Yes. Shopify suits makers who want their own brand, customer data, and pricing control. It doesn't bring built-in traffic like Etsy, so plan how you'll market the store from day one. 2. How much does it cost to start a handmade Shopify store? The Basic plan costs $29 a month billed yearly or $39 monthly in the US. Also budget for a domain, card processing on each sale, packaging, and any paid apps you add. 3. Can I sell on Shopify and Etsy at the same time? Yes, and many makers do. Use a third-party sync app to keep inventory and orders aligned, since Shopify's Marketplace Connect no longer takes new Etsy connections. 4. Do I need a business license to sell handmade items on Shopify? It depends on where you live and what you sell. Shopify lets individuals open a store, but your city, state, or country may require a license or tax registration. Food, cosmetics, and children's products usually have extra rules. 5. Can you sell handmade items on Shopify? Yes. Shopify has no rules that limit handmade products. You can sell one-of-a-kind pieces, small batches, personalized orders, and craft kits from your own store. There’s no handmade review process like the one on Etsy, but it's always better to check your local rules before you launch. 6. Does Shopify make products for you? No. Shopify runs your storefront, checkout, payments, and orders. It doesn’t make, stock, or ship products. As a handmade seller, you make your own pieces. For extras like printed totes or mugs, a print-on-demand app such as Printify or Printful can make and ship them after each order.

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9 Min • 26 October 2026

Shopify Conversion Rate Optimization: The BFCM 2026 Fixes That Matter Most

Black Friday is November 27. Cyber Monday is November 30. You have five weeks. Your ads, emails, and texts will send shoppers to your store, whatever you do. What decides your BFCM revenue is what those shoppers find when they land. That is the job of Shopify conversion rate optimization (CRO). Last year, Shopify merchants sold $14.6 billion over BFCM with an average cart of $114.70. At that volume. Why BFCM Traffic Converts Differently? BFCM shoppers don’t behave like your regular visitors. They arrive with a deal in mind, usually on a phone, and they leave quickly if anything feels off. Here’s what’s different about BFCM traffic: Most visitors land on a sale or product page from an ad or email, not on your homepage. Smartphones drove 56.4% of online holiday transactions in 2025, according to Adobe. Gift buyers want to know the gift will arrive in time and can be returned. Cross-border shoppers placed 16% of Shopify’s BFCM orders last year. Shop Pay was used on 32% of Shopify BFCM orders, so shoppers expect one-tap checkout. Step 1: Find the Biggest Leak in Your Shopify Conversion Funnel The first step in CRO for Shopify is finding out where shoppers leave your store. Before changing anything, check your conversion funnel in Shopify Analytics. Go to Analytics > Report > Conversion rate breakdown It follows visitors from session to add to cart, to checkout, to completed purchase. Compare your BFCM week from last year with the last 30 days, then split the numbers by device, traffic source, and landing page. Based on our experience, here are the reasons and their fixes. Where shoppers drop offWhat it usually meansStart withLow add-to-cart rate, worst on mobileShoppers can’t see the deal, price, or delivery date fast enoughProduct page fixesGood add-to-cart, few reach checkoutSurprise costs, or a cart that stallsCart fixesReach checkout but don’t buyPayment, form, or trust problemsCheckout fixesOne traffic source far below the restThe ad promises something the page doesn’t showLanding page match For example, let's take a store with 20,000 sessions. Of those, 1,400 add to cart, 560 reach checkout, and 380 buy, for a 1.9% conversion rate. Here the biggest problem sits between cart and checkout, since only 40% of carts make it through. Lift that to 50%, and you’d get 475 orders instead of 380. At last year’s average BFCM cart of $114.70, that’s roughly $10,900 more from the same traffic. Step 2: The Fixes, Stage by Stage Start with the stage your data points to. Every fix below can be done by mid-November without a redesign. 1. Make the landing page match the ad If someone clicks “30% off all serums,” the page they land on should say exactly that with the sale price showing. Send product ads to product pages and offer ads to a sale collection. See our Black Friday landing page examples for more ideas. 2. Show the deal and the delivery date on the product page Shopify applies automatic discounts in the cart and at checkout. Depending on your theme, your product page might still show the full price. Check it on a real phone. If the discount isn’t visible, add a sale badge or a compare-at price with the savings right next to it. Gift buyers also need a delivery date. Shoppers abandon checkout because delivery is too slow. Show an estimated arrival date and your holiday order cutoff on the product page. Above is a store using a delivery date calendar on their cart page. 3. Remove the cost surprise Unexpected costs are the top reason people walk away from checkout. Show your shipping costs or free shipping threshold in the cart. Set the threshold a little above your current average order value. If you sell abroad, show local currencies and duties through Shopify Markets. 4. Turn the cart into a place to decide A full-page cart pulls shoppers off your sale page. A slide-out cart drawer keeps them where they are. Show the discount they’ve unlocked, how much they’re saving, and how close they are to the next reward. Suggest one relevant product. Keep express checkout buttons inside the drawer. 5. Make checkout a one-tap job Turn on Shop Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and PayPal, and show them on product pages and in the cart. Also, don’t force people to create an account. 6. Test every discount code on a phone Make sure to test every discount code you’re promoting on your phone. A code that fails at checkout costs you the sale. Check expiry dates, time zones, minimums, and discount combination settings. Our guide to Shopify discount combinations explains how they interact. 7. Check your page speed Run your key product pages and cart through Google PageSpeed Insights, especially on mobile. Compress large images, remove unused apps, and check for scripts slowing down your store. Test everything on a real phone. For more fixes, see our guide on what to check after installing Shopify apps. If the store already feels slow, see what to check after installing Shopify apps. Case study: How Anua turned its cart into an upsell engine In August 2025, Anua, the Korean skincare brand, moved its Shopify store off a full-page cart and onto iCart, our cart drawer app. BFCM was three months away, and their cart had three problems. The cart page sent shoppers away from the product they were looking at. Most people bought one product instead of a full routine, so order values stayed low. Nobody could see how close they were to free shipping or a reward either. A slide-out cart drawer replaced the cart page, and they upsell offers in the cart drawer itself. Anua’s cart drawer using iCart What we like most is the timing. The new cart went live in August, so it had months of real shoppers behind it by the time November traffic arrived. Results: $857,686.65 in store revenue during BFCM week Average order value: $116.81 Share of orders with an upsell added: 7342 Your 5-week BFCM Conversion Plan Here’s the plan we’d follow with five weeks left. DatesWhat to doOct 26 to Oct 30Check tracking and run your funnel auditNov 2 to Nov 13Make your fixes. Theme edits and new apps stop on Nov 13Nov 16 to Nov 20Test on real phones and place test ordersNov 20 to Nov 30No new ideas. Only fix what’s brokenNov 27 to Nov 30Watch your numbers live Shopify’s Rollouts feature helps here. It’s available on Basic and up. You can schedule your BFCM theme to go live on November 27 and switch back on its own after Cyber Monday. If your Shopify store has limited traffic, prioritize bigger improvements over small A/B tests. At a 2% conversion rate, detecting a 10% relative lift (from 2% to 2.2%) requires approximately 80,700 sessions per version. Most stores won’t get there in five weeks, and a hidden shipping cost doesn’t need a test anyway. Hold off on a new theme, a new payment provider, URL changes, or a batch of new apps until December. If your store already feels slow, here’s our guide on what to check after installing Shopify apps. What to Watch During BFCM Weekend Check a few numbers every few hours so you can fix problems the same day. Last year, Shopify sales peaked at 12:01 PM EST on Black Friday, so be around then. Watch revenue per session, not just conversion rate. A sudden increase in ad traffic can pull your BFCM conversion rate down even while revenue climbs. What you seeLikely causeQuick fixRevenue per session drops as sessions riseAd traffic landing on the wrong pageCheck top landing pages and pause the weakest ad setMobile add-to-cart rate fallsA product page is broken, slow, or sold outOpen your top five products on a phoneCheckout conversion dropsA payment method or code is failingPlace a test order Start With the Biggest Drop-off, Not the List Good Shopify conversion rate optimization before BFCM is mostly about orders. Check your Shopify Analytics and find the stage where you lose the most shoppers. Fix it, test it on a phone, and implement all your ideas by November 20. After Cyber Monday, compare your BFCM funnel with a normal month and keep what worked. Look beyond total sales. Check whether more shoppers completed checkout, whether your cart offers increased average order value, and which product pages performed better. These numbers will tell you what actually helped and what needs more work. BFCM lasts four days, but the improvements you make to your Shopify store should keep helping you convert shoppers long after the sale ends. FAQs 1. How early should I start conversion rate optimization before Black Friday? Six to eight weeks ahead is ideal. With five weeks left, audit now, finish changes by mid-November, and implement all the strategies in your store a week before Black Friday. 2. What is a good Shopify conversion rate during Black Friday? Anything between 3- 5% is good. Compare against your own BFCM week from last year, not an industry average. Revenue per session also tells you more than conversion rate during a sale weekend. 3. Why does my conversion rate drop on Black Friday when sales go up? Ads and deals on sites bring in lots of first-time visitors who are comparing prices. Sessions grow faster than orders, so the rate dips. Check conversion by traffic source to find the channel pulling it down and optimize it. 4. How do I check that my Shopify conversion tracking still works? Go to Shopify Admin > Settings > Customer events and use the Pixel Helper to test your tracking. Place a test order and check that the checkout completion event fires. Then verify the purchase event in GA4's Realtime report and Meta Events Manager's Test Events, if both platforms are connected.

9 Min • 4 November 2026

Shopify Speed Optimization: How to Prevent a Black Friday Website Slowdown

Last Black Friday, many Shopify stores struggled. Pages crawled, buttons froze, and sale banners jumped around on phones. Shopify's storefronts held up under the load. Individual stores did not. Black Friday lands on November 27 this year, and Cyber Monday follows on November 30. Last year, Shopify merchants sold $14.6 billion over the BFCM weekend [Source]. To protect your BFCM sales, speed up your Shopify store before Black Friday. Below, you'll see why stores slow down in a spike, what to fix in the next three weeks, and how to plan the weekend. Why Black Friday Website Performance Decides Your Sales Speed and sales move together, and the link is strongest when shoppers compare deals across tabs. Shopify's own 2026 analysis found that every 100 milliseconds of extra load time lines up with about 3.5% lower conversion. [Source] For more ideas, see our guide on BFCM fixes that increase your Shopify conversion rate. Phones raise the stakes. Mobile drove 55.2% of US online sales on Black Friday 2025, according to Adobe's holiday recap [Source]. Most shoppers will arrive on a phone, often on mobile data, from an email that reached thousands of people at once. If your theme still struggles on small screens, start with these steps to make your Shopify store mobile friendly. What Shopify Handles and What You Handle On Shopify, servers, the CDN, and checkout capacity are Shopify's job. Your theme, apps, images, and scripts are yours. LayerWho handles itServers and scalingShopifyCDN and cachingShopifyCheckout capacityShopifyTheme, apps, images, scriptsYouApp and integration serversApp vendor Shopify says nearly 80% of its stores pass all Core Web Vitals [Source]. The stores that fail usually fail because of what sits on top of the theme. What Causes a Black Friday Website Slowdown A Black Friday website slowdown usually starts with sale features added in a hurry, apps that depend on their own servers, and services outside your store. Here are the causes the Identixweb team sees most often on Shopify stores. Sale features stacked on the theme Countdown timers, spin wheels, popups, autoplay videos, and five-slide banners all show up in November. Each one adds code or weight. Animations and too many sections slow pages down. Timers and announcement bars that load late also push content down the page, which hurts Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). Apps and tags you forgot about Shopify lists three main factors behind store performance: Your theme Your apps Third-party code, including tag managers. Uninstalling an app doesn't automatically remove its code from your theme. Old ad pixels pile up the same way. We build Shopify apps ourselves, so we know how much code an app can leave behind. App servers under pressure Reviews, search, upsell, and bundle widgets often pull data from the app maker's servers. If a vendor's server slows, your product page waits for it. Inventory and ERP syncs face the same rush. Shopify's API traffic alone peaked at 31.8 million requests per minute last BFCM [Source]. Outages outside your store On November 18, 2025, a Cloudflare outage caused errors across large parts of the web, Shopify included. On Cyber Monday, Shopify's admin login failed for hours while storefronts kept working [Source]. Merchants couldn't add discounts or send planned emails. Neither problem started with the stores, and neither could be fixed by them. The lesson is to schedule what you can, so your sale never depends on logging in at 9 a.m. Last-minute changes A new app installed the week of the sale or a quick theme edit on Thanksgiving can undo months of work. Late changes are one of the most common reasons stores called Identixweb last November. Shopify Speed Optimization Fixes to Make Before the Sale Measure with real shopper data first Go to Analytics > Reports in your Shopify admin and open the web performance reports for LCP, INP, and CLS for real visitors. It shows app installs and theme changes marked on the timeline. An Interaction to Next Paint (INP) report on Shopify Reports Data can lag by up to 36 hours [Source], so record your baseline now. Shopify's targets are LCP of 2.5 seconds or less, INP of 200 milliseconds or less, and CLS of 0.1 or less. Make the first image load fast In most stores, the LCP element is the hero banner or the main product image. Use one static image instead of a slider. Size it for mobile screens. Keep lazy loading for images further down the page, never for the first one shoppers see. Cut apps, embeds, and old tags List every app that touches your storefront. For each one, ask a simple question: did it earn money last BFCM? Turn off app embeds you don't need in the theme editor. Remove leftover code from deleted apps, and clear old pixels out of your tag manager. Our guide to checking apps that slow your store shows how to test one app at a time without breaking anything. Build sale features lightly Load countdown timers only on sale pages. Reserve space for announcement bars so nothing shifts. Turn on pagination for big collections so fewer products load at once. Keep your Black Friday landing page simple and use fewer images if you can. A Client Story: The Store That Froze When the Email Went Out Last November, a furniture brand on Shopify sent its Black Friday email at 6 a.m. Within minutes, product pages slowed to a crawl on phones. The add-to-cart button took seconds to respond. The checkout itself was fine. Shoppers just struggled to reach it. After the BFCM weekend, the brand got in touch with us to find out why. They wanted to be prepared for Christmas. Our audit found 3 Shopify apps doing overlapping jobs. A countdown timer loaded on every page. Code from a reviews app removed months earlier was still running. The homepage slider carried five full-size banners. Each piece was small. Together, under a traffic spike, they kept the browser too busy to respond to taps. Our team removed the duplicate apps and limited the timer to sales pages. They cleaned out the old code and swapped the slider for one static hero image. Mobile LCP dropped from [4.1] seconds to [2.3] seconds. INP fell from [420] to [180] milliseconds. The brand is heading into this year's BFCM with a faster store and a better plan. How to Test Black Friday Website Performance Before November 27 Test the full shopping journey the way a shopper will, on a phone, before your change freezes. On Shopify, focus on your theme, apps, and integrations. Shopify runs its own load and stress tests on the platform ahead of sales events like BFCM. Walk the journey on a midrange phone. Use mobile data and go from homepage to collection, product, cart, and checkout. Preview your sale banners and test every discount code. Email every app vendor on your storefront. Ask whether they've been load tested for BFCM, what their rate limits are, and where their status page lives. Check your inventory syncs. A sync with your 3PL or ERP that lags by minutes can oversell your best sellers. Freeze changes by November 20. Record your baseline numbers that day so you can spot a problem fast during the sale. Plan the BFCM Weekend Schedule everything you can, decide in advance what you'll switch off, and know who is watching. Try Shopify's Rollouts feature, launched in March 2026 for Basic plans and above [Source]. It can publish theme changes at a set time. It can also revert them when a sale ends. Schedule your discounts and emails too, so an admin outage can't hold up your launch. Next, write a short kill list. These are the names of the widgets you'll turn off first if pages are slow, such as recommendation carousels, live chat, or a spin wheel. Product pages and checkout stay. During the weekend, watch Live View, Shopify's status page, and the status pages of your key app vendors. Pick one person who makes the call on switching things off. For everything beyond speed, from inventory to support, go through our full Black Friday checklist for Shopify stores. Get Your Store Ready While There's Still Time Shopify speed optimization before Black Friday comes down to a short list. Measure real shopper data, fix the first image, cut what isn't earning, test on a phone. Do not make any changes after November 20 and schedule the rest. Shopify will carry the traffic. Your store needs to keep up with it. Want a team that does this every season? Identixweb's Shopify speed optimization services include audits, theme cleanup, and app reviews before your busiest weekend. FAQs 1. Does Shopify crash on Black Friday? Rarely. Shopify handled 489 million edge requests per minute at the 2025 peak [Source]. Most BFCM slowdowns come from the store layer, meaning themes, apps, scripts, and outside services. Admin and network incidents still happen, as Cyber Monday 2025 showed, so schedule key changes in advance. 2. How fast should a Shopify store be for Black Friday? Aim for Google's "good" mobile scores: LCP of 2.5 seconds or less, INP of 200 milliseconds or less, CLS of 0.1 or less. Shopify's data links every 100 milliseconds saved to higher conversion, so going faster than the threshold still pays. 3. Will a Shopify speed optimization app fix my store before BFCM? Not on its own. Many speed optimization apps add their own script, and they can't remove code left behind by other apps. Cutting apps, fixing the hero image, and cleaning up the theme does more. 4. Should I test my Shopify store for speed before Black Friday? Yes. Run one test now to set a baseline and another once your sale theme, banners, and apps are in place. Check your web performance reports, run PageSpeed Insights on your top product and collection pages, and go through the full shopping journey as a customer. 5. Why should I stop making changes a week before Black Friday? The last week is for testing, scheduling, and fixing only what's broken. That’s why merchants who want a profitable BFCM always plan a month ahead of the Black Friday season.

9 Min • 28 October 2026

Shopify Discounts for BFCM: Which Discount Type to Use and How to Set It Up

Black Friday falls on November 27 this year, and Cyber Monday on November 30. Shoppers, as always, will show up expecting a real deal. On Cyber Monday 2025, Adobe tracked peak discounts of 31% on electronics, 28% on toys, and 25% on apparel (Adobe). Most Shopify merchants we work with focus on one question: “Should we offer 25% or 30% off?” But the discount percentage is only part of the decision. What matters more is what you want to achieve, whether that’s increasing order value, clearing inventory, or bringing in new customers. There are four native types of discounts on Shopify, and choosing the right one can make a real difference to your BFCM sales. Here's how to match each type to a BFCM goal, set it up in your Shopify admin, and avoid the rules that catch stores out every November. The 4 Shopify Discount Types for BFCM (Black Friday Cyber Monday) Shopify gives you four native discount types: amount off products, amount off order, buy X get Y, and free shipping. Any of them can run as an automatic discount or as a code. Discount typeWhat it doesBFCM useAmount off productsTakes a % or fixed amount off chosen products or collectionsA sale on one collectionAmount off orderTakes a % or fixed amount off the whole cartSitewide sale or spend tiersBuy X get YGives a free or discounted item when the shopper buys somethingBOGO or a gift with purchaseFree shippingRemoves shipping costs on qualifying ordersFree shipping over a set amount Automatic discounts vs discount codes An automatic discount applies in the cart by itself. Nobody has to find, copy, or remember a code. For a public Black Friday sale, that's usually what you want, because there's nothing for shoppers to forget or mistype. Here’s our guide on how to set up automatic discounts on Shopify in 2025. Codes are better when you need to know where a sale came from, like your email list, an influencer, or a referral partner. You can also cap how many times a code gets used, which automatic discounts don't let you do. Our guide to Shopify referral codes shows how to generate and track them. Which Shopify Discount Type Should You Use for BFCM? Pick the discount type based on the goal of your sale. A sale meant to clear old stock needs a different setup from one meant to raise order value. Here are the Black Friday promotion ideas we usually recommend, based on what a merchant wants to achieve. Your BFCM goalDiscount typeMethodWatch out forClear slow or seasonal stockAmount off products on one collectionAutomaticKeep best sellers out of itRaise average order valueAmount off order with a minimum spend, in tiersAutomaticSet the first tier above your current AOVProtect a thin marginFree shipping over a threshold, or a free giftAutomaticCount what the gift costs you, not its price tagSell a second unitBuy X get YAutomaticShopify won't add the free item to the cartGive VIPs early accessAmount off order for a customer segmentAutomaticTest it on a VIP test account before the email goes outTrack a channelAny type, as a unique codeCodeLimit it to one use per customer Want to have a successful BFCM? Here are proven Black Friday strategies for this year Run the margin calculation before you pick a number Every discount comes straight out of your profit, so you have to sell more just to stay level. Say a product sells for $100 and costs you $50. You keep $50 on every sale, so 10 sales in a normal week earn you $500. At 20% off, it sells for $80 but still costs $50, so you keep $30. You'd need about 17 sales to earn the same $500. DiscountYou keep per saleSales needed to earn $500No discount$501010% off$401320% off$301730% off$2025 Try it with your own price and cost. The thinner your margin, the faster those numbers climb. How to Set Up Shopify Discounts for Black Friday Every native discount starts in the same place: go to Discounts > Create discount in your Shopify admin and pick the type. The settings below are the ones that matter most for a BFCM sale. Amount off products or amount off order Step 1: Choose the method. Pick Automatic discount and add a title, or Discount code and add a code. Step 2: Set the Value as a percentage or a fixed amount. Step 3: Under Applies to, choose the collection or products. Skip this step for an order discount. Step 4: Add a Minimum purchase amount if you're building spend tiers. Create one discount per tier. Step 5: Choose the Eligibility: all customers, specific customers, customer segments, or markets. Step 6: Choose what it combines with. For spending tiers, don't let the tiers combine with each other. Shopify then applies whichever discount is best for the cart. Step 7: Set the Active dates and save. Planning to stack offers, like a sale plus free shipping? Our guide to Shopify discount combinations covers the pairings that protect your margin. Buy X get Y for BOGO and gifts with purchase Step 1: Under Customer buys, choose Minimum quantity of items or Minimum purchase amount. Select the qualifying products or collections. Step 2: Under Customer gets, set the quantity and choose which products or collections shoppers can receive at a discount. Step 3: Set the Discounted value as Free, Percentage, or Amount off each item. Step 4: Turn on Maximum uses per order. For a one-time BOGO offer, set it to 1 so shoppers can't keep claiming free items. Step 5: Choose the Eligibility and Combinations settings. Check whether the offer should work alongside your other BFCM discounts. Step 6: Set the Active dates and save. Here's the part almost everyone misses: Shopify doesn't automatically add the free or discounted item to the cart. Shoppers must add it themselves. If they don't know that, they could check out without their gift and email you about it later. Make the offer clear in your banner, or show the eligible gift in the cart. A cart drawer can help here. With iCart – Cart Drawer Cart Upsell, you can show free-gift offers and a progress bar that tells shoppers how much more they need to spend to unlock a reward. It's a useful way to keep your BFCM offer visible while shoppers are still adding products to their cart. Free shipping Step 1: Under Countries, choose All countries or select specific countries where you want to offer free shipping. Step 2: Turn on Exclude shipping rates over a certain amount if you don't want expensive express delivery options to become free. Step 3: Set the Minimum purchase requirements. Choose a minimum order amount or minimum quantity of items. Step 4: Choose the Eligibility: all customers, specific customers, customer segments, or markets. Step 5: Choose the Combinations settings. Allow free shipping to combine with your BFCM product or order discounts if that's part of your offer. Step 6: Set the Active dates and save. The BFCM Discount Call We Still Think About Last November, about two weeks before Black Friday, we got on a call with a skincare brand selling in the US and Canada. Their plan was already set: 30% off everything with a code. The ads were booked, and the launch email was written. We asked for two numbers first: gross margin and average order value. Their margin was around 55%, and the average order was $48. At 30% off, they'd have had to sell about 120% more units just to match the gross profit of a normal week. Their sales data showed a bigger issue. Most orders had just one item, usually one of their two best sellers. Getting people to buy wasn't the problem. Getting them to buy a second product was. So we changed the discount type as well as the number. We set up an automatic amount-off-order discount in two tiers: 15% off over $75 and 20% off over $110. We added a free travel-size cleanser through buy X get Y on orders over $110. Shoppers didn't need a code, and the cart showed them how far they were from the next tier. Results: The average order went from $48 to $67.87 over BFCM weekend, and revenue was up 48.14% as compared to BFCM the previous year. Keep Your Black Friday Discounts Honest A discount is only real if the previous price was real. In the US, the FTC's pricing guides say a former price must be the actual, bona fide price you offered the public regularly, for a reasonably substantial period (16 CFR 233.1). Raising compare-at prices in October to make November's discount look bigger is exactly what the guides warn against. Selling into the EU? Any announced price cut has to show your prior price, which is the lowest price you charged in the 30 days before the sale. Choosing Your Shopify Discounts for BFCM 2026 Start with the goal and leave the percentage for last. Match the goal to one of the four Shopify discounts, run the margin calculation, and only then set the number. Schedule it in the right time zone, test it on a phone, and keep your compare-at prices honest. More BFCM prep for your store: Best BFCM Social Media Campaigns to Learn From BFCM Checklist for Shopify Stores Black Friday vs. Cyber Monday: Which One is Better for Shopify Stores? FAQs 1. What are the types of Shopify discounts to run during BFCM? Shopify has four native types: amount off products, amount off order, buy X get Y, and free shipping. Each can run as an automatic discount or a discount code. Apps can add more, like tiered or mix-and-match offers. 2. Is an automatic discount or a discount code better for Black Friday? For a public sale, automatic discounts are the simpler choice because shoppers don't need to enter anything. Use codes when you want to track a channel, like email or influencers, or limit how often an offer gets used. 3. Why isn't my free gift added to the cart automatically? Shopify's buy X get Y discount never adds the free item for the shopper. They have to add it to the cart themselves. Say so in your BFCM sales banner, or use a cart drawer app that shows the gift as a reward tier. 4. Can I combine Shopify discounts during BFCM? Yes. Product, order, and shipping discounts can combine if you allow it in each discount's combination settings. Two shipping discounts can't apply to the same order, though, and some combinations depend on your plan and checkout setup.