Your BFCM merchandising checklist: five settings to check before Black Friday

November 10, 2026

•

6 min read

Black Friday traffic doesn't wait for anyone to log in. The shoppers arrive, search, filter and scroll, and your collection pages do the selling for you. Whatever you set up this week is what they'll see on sale day.

The good news is that everything on this list is already in your Boost admin. Each one takes a few minutes, and once it's on, it runs by itself through peak.

Quick summary

The five merchandising settings to check before Black Friday, and where to find each one in Boost.
How to stop sold-out products and dead-end searches from costing you sales at peak.
How to set start and end dates so your Black Friday rules switch on and off without you.

Why check your merchandising before Black Friday?

Your merchandising rules decide what shoppers see first, and at peak, first is most of what they see. A shopper who lands on your sales collection and finds sold-out products, or searches for "black friday" and gets nothing back, usually leaves.

The timing matters too. Most stores start trading Black Friday offers in mid-November, and nobody wants to be editing rules on the day itself. So the best time to check is now, while you still have a quiet afternoon. Set it once, and Boost keeps it running.

What should be on your BFCM merchandising checklist?

Here are the five settings to check, in the order we'd tackle them.

What to check	Why it matters at peak	Where to find it in Boost
1. Variant rules	Shoppers see products in their size first	Merchandising > Collection pages
2. Out-of-stock suppression	Sold-out products stop taking up the top spots	Merchandising > Collection pages
3. Zero-result searches	Searches for your sale lead somewhere useful	Search analytics, or ask Shopify Sidekick
4. Inline banners	Your offer sits right inside the product grid	Merchandising > Add New Rule > Banner
5. Scheduled rules	Your Black Friday setup turns on and off by itself	Active date on any merchandising rule

Some features depend on your Boost plan and theme version, so check your plan if a setting looks locked.

1. Rank by the sizes you actually have

"In stock" isn't always "in their size." A jacket with 200 units left can still be sold out in every size except XXL. If it sits at the top of your collection, most shoppers click, find nothing in their size and bounce.

Merchandising by variants lets you rank products by the number of variants shoppers can actually buy, not by total inventory. You can use variant number, variants in stock or the ratio of variants in stock as a condition.

To set it up, go to Merchandising > Collection pages, open your Black Friday collection (or create a rule for it) and add a Boost strategy based on variants in stock. Products with the most sizes and colors available rise to the top. This one matters most if you sell apparel or footwear.

2. Push sold-out products down, or hide them

Out-of-stock products shouldn't take up your best positions during your busiest week. As stock moves fast on sale day, yesterday's bestseller can be today's dead end.

With stock-level merchandising, you can automatically boost, demote or hide products based on whether inventory is above or below a number you choose. A simple peak setup looks like this:

Demote products with stock below a low threshold, so they drop down the page but stay findable.
Hide products that are fully sold out, if you'd rather shoppers never see them.
Boost products with plenty of stock, so you sell through what you have.

You can apply Hide, Boost and Demote to all collection pages at once, so one rule covers your whole store.

3. Fix your zero-result searches

Every search that returns nothing is a shopper telling you what they want, and leaving without it. At peak, those searches add up fast.

Start by finding them. Check your Boost search analytics for searches with no results, or simply ask Shopify Sidekick which searches are costing you sales. Then fix the biggest ones before traffic peaks. For example:

Redirect searches like "black friday", "sale" or "deals" to your Black Friday collection.
Point searches for out-of-stock or discontinued products to the closest alternative.

It's a ten-minute job that keeps shoppers moving instead of hitting a blank page.

4. Add a promo banner to your Black Friday collection

An inline banner puts your offer right where shoppers are already looking: inside the product grid. It's the simplest way to make sure nobody scrolls past your Black Friday deal.

Inline banners work on specific collection pages and on search results for specific terms. You can add up to four banners per collection or search term, place each one anywhere from position 1 to 50, and link it to a product or page.

To add one, go to Merchandising > Add New Rule, choose Collection page, select your Black Friday collection and pick the Banner strategy. Use the preview link to check how it looks on your store before you publish.

If you only do one thing on this list, make it this one.

5. Schedule your rules so they start and stop on time

You shouldn't have to log in at midnight to switch your Black Friday setup on. Every merchandising rule in Boost, banners included, has an optional Active date range.

Set the start date for when your sale begins and the end date for when it finishes. The rule goes live on its own and stops on its own. Once the period ends, it shows an Expired label in your rule list, so you can see at a glance what's finished.

A quick tip: set up your Cyber Monday rules at the same time, with their own dates. Then the whole weekend runs itself.

Running bundles or discounts for Black Friday too? You can schedule bundle promotions in Campaign Planner the same way, so they open and close on time.

How long does this checklist take?

Most merchants can work through all five settings in an afternoon. None of them need a developer or theme code, and you can preview every change before it goes live.

The key is doing it before peak traffic starts. Once your rules are scheduled, there's nothing left to do on sale day except watch the orders come in.

Coming soon: banners that fit every screen

We're working on an update to inline banners that lets you size each banner separately for desktop and mobile. So your Black Friday banner can look just right on a big screen and on a phone. Keep an eye on Boost updates for more.

Set it once. Sell more at peak.

Work through the checklist this week, and your merchandising will look after itself through Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Switch it on. Let it run.
Sell more.

Open Merchandising in Boost

Need a hand? Our merchandising help articles walk you through every setting.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a developer to set up merchandising rules?

No. You can set up variant rules, stock-level rules, banners and schedules in the Boost admin, with no theme code.

Can I schedule merchandising rules in advance?

Yes. Every merchandising rule has an optional Active date range. The rule goes live on the start date and stops on the end date, with no need to log in.

Will my rules work on all my collection pages?

It depends on the rule. Hide, Boost and Demote can apply to all collection pages at once. Inline banners and pinned products apply to specific collections or search terms.

What happens to sold-out products during Black Friday?

That's up to you. With stock-level rules, you can demote products below a stock threshold so they drop down the page, or hide them completely.

How many banners can I add to a collection?

You can add up to four inline banners per collection page and up to four per search term.

Ellie Ho

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Content Marketing Specialist

November 10, 2026

•

6 min read

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Your BFCM merchandising checklist: five settings to check before Black Friday

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