How to Prepare for Black Friday & Cyber Monday 2026 on Amazon: A Step-by-Step Seller Plan

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the most important days of the year for most Amazon sellers. Adobe forecasts $275.1 billion in US online holiday spending this season, with $47.5 billion of it in Cyber Week alone, the five days from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday. Cyber Monday is expected to reach $15.1 billion, the first time a single day of US online sales has passed $15 billion.

The sellers who win that week usually aren’t the ones with the biggest discounts. They’re the ones who get their deals approved, their stock checked in, their margins checked and their ads warmed up before the rush. Many of those steps have hard deadlines that land weeks before Black Friday.

Below is the plan we follow for the brands we manage, broken into eight steps in the order you need to do them.

Key Dates for Black Friday & Cyber Monday 2026 (US)

Step 1

Choose Your Hero Products and Submit Deals

Deadline: October 20

Not every ASIN belongs in a deal. Pick a short list of hero products that have:

• A healthy margin that can absorb a 15–30% discount plus fees
• A strong rating and plenty of reviews, because deal shoppers compare fast
• Enough inventory, or enough time to get it checked in, to last the whole event
• Proof of demand, such as good results during Prime Day or Prime Big Deal Days

Then choose the right deal type. Lightning Deals run for a few hours and give a quick spike in visibility. Best Deals run longer and suit your strongest sellers. Prime Exclusive Discounts show a Prime-only price on your listing and in search. Fees are the same as Prime Day: $100 upfront per promotion plus 1.5% of promotional sales, capped at $5,000.

Deal prices have to clear Amazon’s lookback rules, meaning they must be lower than the item’s recent prices. The good news this year is that Amazon has confirmed Prime Big Deal Days promotional prices are excluded from the 30- and 60-day lookback windows. Your October discount won’t force a deeper one in November.

Before you submit, check your Account Health Rating, look for suppressed or at-risk deals in the Deals dashboard, and make sure every deal-linked listing is active.

Step 2

Forecast and Send Inventory Before the Cutoffs

Deadlines: October 21 (minimal splits) and October 28 (Amazon-optimized splits)

Running out of stock during BFCM costs you the sales, and it also hurts your organic rank going into December. Running too heavy leaves you paying storage on slow stock in January. To forecast:

1. Start with last year. Pull your unit sales for Black Friday Week through Cyber Monday 2025 for each ASIN.
2. Adjust for this year. Factor in your current sales trend compared with last year, and the lift you saw from deals during Prime Big Deal Days.
3. Add December. Holiday demand keeps going after Cyber Monday, so plan stock to last until your next shipment can realistically be checked in.
4. Add a safety buffer. Keep a cushion on your hero products, and stay leaner on slow sellers.

Inventory must be received at Amazon’s facilities by these dates to stay Prime-eligible during the event:

Amazon has said fulfillment centers focus on receiving in September and October, then switch to processing orders in November and December, so inbound capacity gets tighter from here. If you’re hitting limits, bid for extra space with Capacity Manager. As a safety net, think about keeping some stock in a 3PL or your own warehouse so you can switch to Seller Fulfilled Prime or FBM if FBA runs out.

Step 3

Recalculate Your Margins With Peak Fees

Do this before you finalize deal prices

Amazon’s holiday peak fulfillment fee runs from October 15, 2026 to January 14, 2027 and applies to FBA, Multi-Channel Fulfillment and Buy with Prime. It’s charged when a unit ships, averages $0.32 more per unit than non-peak rates, and the 3.5% fuel and logistics surcharge applies on top.

Here’s a simple example of how quickly a deal eats into profit. The product and costs are made up for illustration, so use your own numbers:

In this example, a 20% discount cuts profit per unit by about 63%, and that’s before the $100 upfront deal fee. For a deal to pay off, it needs to bring in enough extra volume, or enough new customers and ranking, to justify the margin. Run this math for every ASIN before you commit.

Step 4

Get Your Listings Deal-Ready

Late October to early November

A deal sends traffic to your listing, but the listing still has to convert it. Adobe expects 57.4% of holiday spending to happen on mobile and AI shopping traffic to grow 130%. Your listing needs to work on a small screen and in AI-driven search, including Amazon’s Rufus assistant. If your hero products need work, our Amazon listing optimization team can get them ready before the rush.

• Title: put the main keyword and the key benefit in the first 80 characters.
• Main image and gallery: clean and readable on a phone, with at least one lifestyle image and one infographic.
• Bullet points: answer the questions shoppers actually ask (size, compatibility, what’s in the box, gift-friendliness), because AI assistants pull answers from them.
• A+ Content: add a comparison chart so shoppers can move to your other products instead of leaving.
• Reviews: respond to recent negative reviews and fix any recurring product issues they point to.
• Listing health: fix suppressed listings, stranded inventory and Buy Box problems now, not on Black Friday.

Step 5

Layer On Coupons and Promotions

Early to mid November

Products that didn’t get into a deal still need something to compete with. Set up these promotions in Seller Central before the event, and check each tool’s own scheduling lead time:

• Coupons: the green coupon badge shows in search results and is quick to set up.
• Prime Exclusive Discounts: a Prime-only price for products outside the deal program.
• Brand Tailored Promotions: discounts for specific audiences, such as cart abandoners, repeat buyers or brand followers (requires Brand Registry).
• Tiered and bundle offers: such as “buy 2, save 10%”, to raise order value.

Don’t stack discounts by accident. A coupon on top of a deal price can push you below break-even.

Step 6

Ramp Up Your PPC Before the Event

November 1 to the start of the event

CPCs rise sharply during BFCM because every seller bids at once. Brands that build sales history and rank in the weeks before the event pay less to stay visible during it. It’s the same ramp-up approach we use in our Amazon PPC management service.

• Increase budgets on hero ASINs gradually, around 10–20% per week, instead of all at once on Black Friday.
• Move your best converting search terms from Prime Big Deal Days into exact-match campaigns.
• Launch or expand Sponsored Brands campaigns on your branded keywords so competitors can’t take your traffic.
• Build Sponsored Display audiences of people who viewed your products, to retarget during and after the event.
• Prepare budget rules to raise daily budgets automatically on the event days.

Step 7

Run the Event Days Like an Operator

Black Friday Week through Cyber Monday

This is not the week to set and forget. Here’s the daily checklist our Amazon account management team runs for clients during the event:

• Morning and afternoon: check budget pacing so top campaigns don’t run out of budget by midday.
• Inventory: watch days of cover on hero ASINs, and if a product is about to sell out, reduce its bids instead of overselling.
• Buy Box and hijackers: make sure you still own the Buy Box and no unauthorized sellers have joined your listings.
• Deal status: confirm every deal went live with the right price and badge.
• Bids by placement: push top-of-search bids on deal ASINs, which convert best while the badge is active.
• Customer messages: reply within 24 hours to protect your account metrics during peak volume.

Step 8

Keep Selling After Cyber Monday

December to January

Sales don’t stop on December 1. Plenty of shoppers browse during BFCM and buy later in December.

• Bring budgets down gradually after the event instead of cutting them to zero.
• Retarget BFCM visitors with Sponsored Display and Brand Tailored Promotions.
• Check Amazon’s last order dates for Christmas delivery, and plan replenishment so you don’t stock out in mid-December.
• Plan for returns. Amazon usually extends its return window over the holidays. Last year, most items bought between November 1 and December 31 could be returned until January 31. If the same policy applies this year, part of your Q4 revenue will come back in January, so keep some cash in reserve.
• Hold a post-event review: which deals made money, which only moved volume, and what to change for Prime Day 2027.

Common BFCM Mistakes to Avoid

• Missing the October deadlines and finding out in November that your deal or stock isn’t eligible.
• Discounting without doing the math, and selling more units at a loss once peak fees and ad costs are counted.
• Raising bids only on Black Friday, when CPCs are highest and you have no sales history to compete with.
• Running out of stock on a hero product, which costs you sales and rank going into December.
• Ignoring listings, and sending deal traffic to a page that doesn’t convert on mobile.

Your BFCM 2026 Checklist

• Pick hero products and submit deals by October 20
• Get FBA shipments checked in by October 21 or October 28
• Recalculate margins with peak fees, the 3.5% surcharge, deal fees and ad costs
• Update titles, images, bullets and A+ content for mobile and AI search
• Set up coupons, Prime Exclusive Discounts and Brand Tailored Promotions
• Ramp up PPC from November 1 and protect your branded keywords
• Monitor budgets, stock and the Buy Box daily during the event
• Keep selling through December and plan cash flow for January returns

Frequently Asked Questions

BFCM rewards sellers who plan early. If you’d like an expert review of your deals, inventory or PPC plan before the deadlines, book a free account audit with ECom Ward. We’ll show you where the biggest opportunities are in your store this season.