BFCM is one of those periods where a well-configured Shopify store and a poorly-configured one will both see a surge in traffic. The difference shows up in conversion rate and revenue.
A lot of merchants put the majority of their prep time into the offer and the marketing. The structural and technical setup gets left until the last minute, or skipped entirely. This article covers the three areas that most commonly cost merchants during BFCM: discount structure, bundle strategy, and checkout configuration.
Get your discount structure right before you go live
Shopify gives you two ways to run discounts: automatic discounts and discount codes. They behave differently, so the first decision is which to use and when.
Automatic discounts apply at checkout without any input from the customer. They reduce friction at a moment when friction costs you sales, and they work well for storewide or collection-level promotions. Discount codes are better for targeted activity: early access for your email subscribers, a higher-value offer for returning customers, or a campaign-specific code that keeps your general storefront clean.
Before you activate anything, run through this:
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Set a start and end date on every discount. Forgetting to switch off a BFCM code in December is a preventable mistake.
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Test every discount and code in a real checkout before you go live. Five minutes now saves a customer-facing error on the day.
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If you’re on Shopify Plus and running more than one promotion, check your discount combination settings. By default, Shopify Plus allows multiple discounts to stack. If that is not your intention, close it off now.
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Use the Compare at Price field to display original pricing alongside sale pricing. You can also create a smart collection that pulls in every discounted product automatically, without manual updates.
One step that often gets overlooked is checking your margin data by product in Shopify’s reports before you finalise the offer. A 40% discount on a low-margin line might drive volume but damage profitability. The offer should be built around your margins, not just around what sounds compelling.
Bundles: often the stronger option
A blanket discount is the easiest thing to set up and the most expected thing a customer will encounter across BFCM. Product bundles give you a different route to increasing average order value (AOV) without simply cutting prices across the range.
A well-built bundle groups complementary products at a combined price that feels like a deal. It can also help move slower-selling stock alongside bestsellers, which is a more productive use of peak traffic than a sale page full of your cheapest items.
Shopify does not have universal native bundle functionality, but Shopify Plus merchants can build bundle logic through scripts, and there are well-tested apps on the Shopify App Store that handle this without custom development. If you have not built a bundle before, set one up and test it over the next couple of weeks. Building it the day before the sale creates problems you do not want.
Bundle formats that tend to perform well for BFCM:
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Starter kits: a core product paired with the accessories or add-ons that make it more useful
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Gift sets: particularly well suited to BFCM given the overlap with the gifting season
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Volume bundles: buy more, save more; a cleaner alternative to a flat percentage discount that rewards basket size without devaluing individual products
Checkout settings: the area that gets left too late
Most of the conversion risk in BFCM lives in the checkout, not the marketing. If traffic increases but conversion rate does not move with it, the checkout is usually where to look first.
Show all costs before the final step. Unexpected delivery charges are the most common reason customers abandon at checkout. Make sure shipping costs, taxes and any applicable fees appear early in the flow. If you offer free delivery above a threshold, add a dynamic cart bar that shows customers exactly how close they are to unlocking it. We have seen this consistently lift AOV for clients including Bulldog Skincare and Daily Skin.
Enable express checkout options. Shop Pay, Apple Pay and Google Pay each reduce the number of steps required to complete a purchase. If they are not yet enabled in your Shopify Payments settings, switch them on before BFCM.
Make guest checkout obvious. Requiring account creation before purchase is an unnecessary barrier. Present guest checkout clearly and do not bury it beneath account login.
Activate abandoned checkout recovery. In Shopify admin, under Apps > Messaging > Automations, you can switch on automatic recovery emails that trigger when someone leaves checkout without completing their order. Turn this on, send yourself a test, and confirm the email fires with the correct product details. Alternatively, if you use CRM platforms such as Klaviyo, ensure you have all the right abandonment flows set up and tested.
Check your checkout on mobile. The majority of BFCM traffic arrives on a phone. Navigate your own checkout on a device and assess whether the form is easy to fill in, payment options display correctly, and nothing important is hidden or cut off. Desktop testing will not catch every issue here.
What BFCM setup usually misses
BFCM generates a significant volume of first-time buyers. How many of them you convert depends on the checkout. How much that traffic is really worth depends on what happens after.
A customer acquired during BFCM is considerably more valuable if they come back. That means the post-purchase experience is part of the setup, not something to think about once the sale has wrapped. Before BFCM starts, build a post-purchase email sequence: a considered message that reinforces the brand beyond the discount, followed by a re-engagement campaign in the weeks after for anyone who has not returned.
At Gravytrain, we work across acquisition, conversion and retention as a connected strategy. BFCM is a clear example of why all three stages need to be planned together. Paid media and SEO bring new customers in. Website optimisation and checkout configuration determine how many of them complete a purchase. And the CRM activity that follows determines whether the cost of acquiring them was worth it.
If you want support making sure your Shopify store is properly set up before BFCM, get in touch with our team.
