Black Friday 2026 lands on Friday, November 27, and Cyber Monday follows on Monday, November 30. That gives you about two weeks from today. This BFCM checklist puts the ten steps in the order you should run them, with dates attached, sequenced for the last two weeks, the BFCM weekend and December follow-up.

One framing note before the list, because it changes what you're optimizing for: this is a clienteling checklist, not a discounting one. The steps below assume you'd rather come out of November with relationships you can sell to again in February than with a margin hole and a spike you can't repeat.

Key takeaways

• Black Friday 2026 is Friday, November 27. Cyber Monday is Monday, November 30.
• Roughly half of holiday shoppers get going before the end of October, and another third don't start until November. The November wave is still yours to catch.
• The weekend is spreading out. In 2025 the Sunday between Black Friday and Cyber Monday drew 27% more in-store shoppers than the year before, while Black Friday itself dipped.
• December isn't the cool-down. Build the follow-up plan before the weekend, not after it.

When is BFCM 2026?

Black Friday is Friday, November 27, 2026, and Cyber Monday is Monday, November 30, 2026. Thanksgiving falls on Thursday, November 26, and the five-day weekend runs from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday. Here's how the ten steps map onto the calendar.

One date after the weekend does more work than the rest. Saturday, December 19 is the last Saturday before Christmas, which is reliably one of the heaviest in-store days of any year.

Why does BFCM prep still matter two weeks out?

Because the biggest wave of shoppers is still arriving. In a survey fielded in July 2025, Bankrate put 37% of holiday shoppers starting in November, which is the single biggest starting month. So the next two weeks still count.

The shape of the weekend has shifted too. NRF and Prosper Insights estimated that a record 202.9 million people shopped in the US over the 2025 Thanksgiving weekend, with 129.5 million of them shopping in stores, up about 3% on the year before. Black Friday itself slipped, from 81.7 million in-store shoppers to 80.3 million, while the Sunday in between rose 27% to 32.6 million. One season doesn't make a trend, but the direction is worth planning around: a staffing and outreach plan built on Friday alone is covering one day out of five.

If you want the reasoning behind choosing clienteling over deeper discounts in the first place, we've made that case separately. The rest of this page assumes you've made the call and want the sequence.

What goes on a BFCM checklist?

Ten steps, in the order the calendar wants them.

1. Start outreach early

Get your first campaigns out this week, not the week of Black Friday. Launch them as an early-access sale, a VIP preview or a heads-up that something's coming. The goal is being front of mind before the inbox war starts.

2. Engage your VIPs

Reward your top spenders before you talk to anyone else. They tend to convert fastest and need the least hand-holding, and if you aren't sure who they are, it pays to work out who your VIPs actually are before you build the list. Offers that work well:

• Early access to sales
• Exclusive discounts
• Hyper-personalized product recommendations
• Personal shopping appointments

3. Build audiences and templates in advance

Do this first, because everything else depends on it. With two weeks left, use what you have: one VIP segment and three templates. Black Friday is already an overwhelming stretch for store associates and they don't need more busy work. Plan your audience segments and campaign templates now, so that when it's time to send, an associate picks up a pre-built audience, drops in a template, edits a line and sends. Start with the first audience below and add the others if time allows:

• VIP clients and high spenders
• Local online-only shoppers
• Local lapsed shoppers

If you need copy to start from, our library of holiday SMS and email campaign templates will save you an afternoon.

4. Set up automated campaigns

Not every message needs an associate's thumb on it to feel personal. Automated campaigns can still read as tailored, and can even come from the associate the customer already shopped with:

"Hi Shelly! It's Bianca from Mind the Gap Denver here and I just wanted to shoot you a quick text to say thanks for shopping with me this week! If you're looking for anything else this holiday season or have any questions, you have a direct line to me via this number. Hope to see you back soon!"

With Endear, that message sends itself. Automate the predictable touch points and save your team's attention for the conversations that need a human:

• Thank you after a first purchase
• Sale announcements
• New collection drops

5. Create gift guide templates

Use the shells you have, or build one now, and let associates fill them in later. Personalized gift guides are one of the strongest holiday plays and they don't have to be a project. With Endear's Shoppable Stories you can build interactive guides from products already in your catalog, and customers can browse, add to cart and check out straight from the guide.

6. Educate your team

Brief the team before Thanksgiving week, before the pressure starts. Every associate should know the marketing calendar, the clienteling plan and their own part in it. Who is sending what, to whom and when? Answer that in a room in November and you avoid a fortnight of confusion in December.

7. Piggyback off marketing

Follow your brand's email and SMS blasts with a personal message the same day. Your marketing team creates the awareness; you make it feel addressed to someone. Something as light as "Hey Sarah, just wanted to make sure you saw our sale this weekend. Let me know if you need help picking anything out!" turns a broadcast into a conversation. This is the step that runs live from November 27 to 30.

8. Set a goal and track it

Give the team one number and make the progress visible. Revenue, messages sent or average order value all work. What doesn't work is a goal nobody can see, so post updates on your CRM dashboard or in a standing check-in.

9. Keep your team motivated

Show associates the line between their outreach and the sales it produced. Dashboards tracking messages sent and revenue generated per associate turn clienteling from an instruction into a scoreboard. People repeat what they can see working.

10. Don't stop after BFCM

Plan December before November ends. The season doesn't close on Cyber Monday, and while the single busiest day is behind you by then, most of the heaviest in-store days are not.

What should you do after Cyber Monday?

Keep going, because December is where the rest of the volume sits. NRF counts the winter holiday season as November and December together, not a single weekend. And Sensormatic predicted that 8 of the 10 busiest US in-store days of the 2025 season would fall in December, with the two behind Black Friday both landing on December Saturdays.

Treat that as a shape rather than a fixture. Sensormatic tied the 2025 ranking partly to Christmas falling on a Thursday, and in 2026 it lands on a Friday, which shifts the pre-Christmas peak. The date to circle either way is Saturday, December 19, the last Saturday before Christmas.

So the first week of December is the wrong moment to ease off. Three things to run:

1. Re-approach the near-misses. Anyone who browsed, replied, or booked and didn't buy over the weekend is warmer in December than any cold list you own.
2. Sell the last-minute gift. Shoppers arriving in the final fortnight before Christmas have a deadline and less patience for browsing. A short, specific recommendation beats a catalog.
3. Follow up on what sold. A post-purchase message in late December is one of the cheapest second purchases you'll set up, and repeat buyers are where the value concentrates.

The retailers who come out of the season ahead aren't only counting November. They're using the weekend to start relationships that pay out in February, which is the whole argument for running BFCM as a clienteling season rather than a discount event.

Frequently asked questions

When is Black Friday 2026?

Black Friday 2026 is Friday, November 27. It always falls the day after Thanksgiving, which is the fourth Thursday in November, and in 2026 that's November 26.

When is Cyber Monday 2026?

Cyber Monday 2026 is Monday, November 30, the Monday after Thanksgiving weekend. NRF treats the five days from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday as the holiday weekend, though plenty of retailers keep promotions running into the first week of December.

How early should retailers start BFCM prep?

Ideally nine to eleven weeks out, which means September for a November weekend, so your audience segments and campaign templates are finished by early October and your first outreach lands before Halloween, when roughly half of holiday shoppers have started buying. If you're starting two weeks out, use what you have: one VIP segment and three templates, then run the steps in the order above.

Is Black Friday still the biggest shopping day?

For in-store shoppers, yes, but the rest of the weekend is catching up. NRF put Black Friday at 80.3 million US in-store shoppers in 2025, down from 81.7 million the year before, while the Sunday of that weekend grew 27%. Treat the full five days as the event rather than the Friday.

What should a BFCM checklist cover for store teams?

Segments and templates built in advance, VIP outreach scheduled before the weekend, a team briefing before Thanksgiving week, a visible goal, and a December follow-up plan written before the weekend starts. The tooling matters less than the sequence.

Starting earlier next year

Next year, start in September. Build your audiences and gift guide templates first, so your first outreach lands before Halloween. That's when it counts: in a survey fielded in July 2025, Bankrate found that 49% of holiday shoppers had started or planned to start before the end of October.

Want the follow-up step to run on its own once the weekend is over? Book a demo to see how Endear queues it up for your associates.