Do I need a higher Shopify plan to handle Black Friday traffic?

No. Hosting is included in every plan and run by Shopify: moving up a plan does not give you a server of your own. Shopify’s infrastructure handled up to 489 million requests per minute during Black Friday 2025, according to Shopify. A higher plan can make sense for other reasons, such as lower transaction fees on high sales volume or extra staff accounts, but not to avoid an outage. What slows a store down during a peak is its theme and its apps: a page that is heavy on a normal day stays heavy when traffic triples, and every app that loads scripts from an outside server adds a weak point. Before changing plans, measure your page speed on a phone and list your active apps, with what each one brings to the campaign.

How long before Black Friday should you prepare your Shopify store?

Four weeks are enough for a store that is already live, provided you stop changing the code a week before. In 2026, Black Friday falls on November 27: the list of products, discounts and apps is drawn up at the end of October, campaign pages are built on a copy of the theme in early November, and the copy is published and tested by November 20 at the latest. After that date, only copy and images change, from the theme editor. If the store needs a redesign, a theme change or a migration, it is too late for this year: a project of that size published in November carries more risk than it brings in sales. Better to start it in January, when traffic comes down, and prepare this year with the current store.

Can you show a struck-through price during Black Friday in France?

Yes, provided the struck-through price is the lowest price charged during the 30 days before the reduction. This is article L112-1-1 of the French Consumer Code, and the DGCCRF says it checks these announcements during major sales events, Black Friday included. In practice, if a product sold at the same price all through October and is discounted on November 27, that October price can serve as the reference. If it was raised in early November, the reference price remains the lowest of the last 30 days, so the old one. For successive reductions, for example a discount extended and increased until Christmas, the reference stays the price before the first reduction. You can also show only the percentage off, calculated on that same reference price. Note down your October prices before launching the campaign.

How many discount codes can a customer use on one Shopify order?

A customer can use at most five product or order discount codes and one shipping code on the same order, according to the Shopify Help Center. A store can also have at most 25 active automatic discounts at once, including those created by apps. When an automatic discount and codes coexist, Shopify applies the best possible combination for the customer, provided each discount has been allowed to combine with the other discount classes in its settings. That setting causes most surprises: a Black Friday automatic discount that blocks the newsletter welcome code, or two discounts that stack and wipe out the margin. Test every campaign code in a real cart, alone and then with the automatic discount, before sending any campaign.

What should you do if your Shopify store goes down in the middle of Black Friday?

First check whether the problem comes from Shopify or from your store. The Shopify Status page shows in seconds whether the platform has an ongoing incident; if so, nobody can fix it for you, and the best move is to tell your customers on social media. If Shopify is working, the problem is in your store: the latest theme change, an app or a discount. If you kept a copy of the theme from before the last publish, republish it: it takes one click and fixes most display or cart failures. Then switch off the suspect app and test an order. All of this assumes a reachable person has access to the store over the weekend, and that this was decided before November 27.

Getting your Shopify store ready for Black Friday: what gives way during a sales peak

Shopify’s servers do not go down on Black Friday. What breaks are badly combined discounts, an app that slows down the cart, a wrong stock setting or a change published the day before. The timeline and the list we prepare before a peak.

The short answer

Getting a Shopify store ready for Black Friday is not about the server: Shopify absorbed up to 489 million requests per minute in 2025. What breaks is the theme, the apps, discounts and stock. Stop making changes a week before, test the cart and checkout on a phone, add a second payment method, show the lowest price of the last 30 days as the struck-through price and decide who answers over the weekend.

Will my Shopify store handle the traffic on Black Friday?

It is the first question we get before a peak. A brand asked us a few days before a TV appearance: would the site hold up when viewers all opened it at the same time?

On the server side, the answer is yes. Over the 2025 Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend, Shopify merchants sold 14.6 billion dollars, with a peak of 5.1 million dollars per minute. The infrastructure handled up to 489 million requests per minute (Shopify, press release filed with the SEC). Hosting is included in the subscription: you have no server to scale, and nobody can do it for you.

What gives way is what belongs to your store: an app that loads its scripts from its own server, a discount code the cart rejects, a button changed the day before. A page that is already slow on a Tuesday gets slower when traffic triples. If yours takes several seconds to load on a phone, start with our guide on a slow Shopify store.

What breaks on a Shopify store during a sales peak?

On a Shopify store, the incidents of a peak come from these six places. None of them shows up on a normal day.

Weak point	What happens on the day	What we check beforehand
Discounts	A code does not apply, or two discounts stack when they should not	Every code and every automatic discount, tested together in a real cart
Apps	An outside service (reviews, upsells, countdown timer) responds slowly and delays the page	The list of active apps, the ones installed for the campaign, the ones to switch off
Stock	Products sold while out of stock, or a variant blocked by mistake	The inventory tracking setting, variant by variant, on featured products
Payment	A single payment method, so every declined card becomes a lost sale	A second payment method switched on and a real test order
Theme	A tweak published the day before breaks add to cart on mobile	No publishing in the days before, a copy of the theme ready to republish
Customer service	The same questions arrive by the hundreds and nobody has the answers	Ready-made answers on delivery, returns and codes

When should you stop changing your store before Black Friday?

In 2026, Black Friday falls on Friday, November 27 and Cyber Monday on Monday, November 30. We recommend stopping all theme changes a week before, that is Friday, November 20. After that date, only the campaign’s copy and images change, from the theme editor.

The rule holds for any peak: a media appearance, a pre-order, a private sale. Under the maintenance contracts we run, nothing goes live during a brand’s busy weeks, as explained in our guide on Shopify store maintenance.

When	What we do
Four weeks before (end of October)	List of featured products, discounts and apps; stock ordered; unused apps removed
Two weeks before (November 13)	Campaign pages built on a copy of the theme; discounts created and scheduled; customer service answers written
One week before (November 20)	Theme copy published and tested on a phone; no code changes after that; real test order
On the day (November 27)	One person watches orders and the inbox; another can step in on the store
The week after	Discounts switched off, temporary apps removed, prices checked

How do you test a Shopify store’s cart and checkout before the big day?

A co-founder told us she once tried to fix a small detail in her store’s code herself, and broke the cart without noticing. A broken cart warns nobody: visitors leave and sales drop. Hence a simple rule, applied after every change and one last time a week before: place a real order.

Shopify Payments has a test mode to simulate payments without charging a card (Shopify Help Center). It checks the flow, but not everything. We add a real low-value order, refunded afterwards, which also checks the confirmation email, the shipping calculation and that the order reaches your tracking tools.

On a phone first: visitors who come from a newsletter or social media open the store on their phone. Add to cart, cart drawer, checkout.
Every discount code of the campaign, alone and then combined with the automatic discount.
A foreign address if you ship outside France: shipping costs and taxes.
A second payment method, for example PayPal alongside Shopify Payments: a declined card should not close the sale.
A copy of the theme ready to republish: duplicating it takes a few seconds, and you go back to the previous version in one click.

Black Friday discounts on Shopify: which limits, and which rules in France?

On the Shopify side, two limits catch stores out every year. A store can have at most 25 active automatic discounts at once, apps included. A customer can use at most five product or order discount codes and one shipping code on the same order (Shopify Help Center, automatic discounts, Shopify Help Center, combining discounts, BOGOS). Each discount must also be allowed to combine with the others, setting by setting.

Some discounts that look simple are not available in Shopify as is. We were asked why a “from three items” discount did not work as planned. Shopify can apply a discount from a minimum number of items; finer rules, such as tiers or a discount limited to certain bundles, often require an app or some code. Another brand had payment tools that got stuck whenever VAT and discounts had to be combined.

On the legal side, any price reduction announced in France must show the previous price, that is the lowest price charged during the 30 days before the reduction (article L112-1-1 of the French Consumer Code, on Légifrance). The DGCCRF, the French consumer protection authority, says it checks these rules during major sales events, Black Friday included, and that for successive reductions the reference price stays the one before the first reduction (DGCCRF). If you raised your prices in November, the struck-through price cannot be the new price.

Stock and delivery times: what to set before sending the Black Friday newsletter?

Shopify lets you keep selling a product whose stock is at zero, with the “Continue selling when out of stock” setting, product by product or variant by variant (Shopify Help Center, Stock Sync). Useful for a pre-order, dangerous if left ticked by mistake: you sell what you do not have, and spend December issuing refunds.

Before sending the newsletter, we go through every featured product: stock tracked or not, out-of-stock setting, actual quantity in the warehouse. Then we check that the delivery times shown account for the order volume and your carrier. A brand that promises delivery before Christmas needs to know until what date it can keep that promise.

The list we prepare before a peak, taken from a TV appearance

Before that TV appearance, we prepared a short list that we have reused since for every peak, Black Friday included. It fits on one page and every line has an owner.

A second payment method, switched on and tested with a real order.
The cart tested end to end on a phone, after the last change and never touched again.
Customer service ready: written answers on delivery times, returns and discount codes, to reply in minutes rather than days.
Someone on call: a person reachable during the peak, who has access to the store, knows how to republish the theme copy and switch off an app.
Apps sorted: those not needed during the campaign are switched off before the campaign starts.
An eye on Shopify’s status: the Shopify Status page tells you in seconds whether a problem comes from the platform or from your store.

Who answers if the store has a problem over the Black Friday weekend?

The question deserves a written answer before the day. Ahead of the holidays, brands that contact us often ask for the same things: someone available during the peak, a store that holds up, and new products online in time. A provider who answers on Monday about a Friday bug costs you the whole weekend.

In practice, you need a name, a way to reach them (phone rather than a form), a response time and an active collaborator access to the store. At Sonho, we answer within 24 business hours when a bug affects a store we look after, and we agree on on-call cover in advance for campaign dates. If your store has passed through several providers and nobody knows who understands it, settle this before November rather than during; it is what our Shopify store page is about.

What should you undo on your Shopify store the week after Black Friday?

The day after Cyber Monday, three steps keep the campaign from dragging on until March. Switch off the discounts and remove the banners. Uninstall the apps taken on for the occasion: some leave code in the theme that keeps loading, as explained in this guide on Shopify without paid apps. Check prices: a reduction extended for Christmas keeps the same reference price as the first one.

Look at the following week’s numbers too. One brand described sales dropping after the holidays, without knowing why. If Black Friday traffic came without buying, look at the store itself: these seven reasons an e-commerce site does not convert are a good place to start.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a higher Shopify plan to handle Black Friday traffic?: No. Hosting is included in every plan and run by Shopify: moving up a plan does not give you a server of your own. Shopify’s infrastructure handled up to 489 million requests per minute during Black Friday 2025, according to Shopify. A higher plan can make sense for other reasons, such as lower transaction fees on high sales volume or extra staff accounts, but not to avoid an outage. What slows a store down during a peak is its theme and its apps: a page that is heavy on a normal day stays heavy when traffic triples, and every app that loads scripts from an outside server adds a weak point. Before changing plans, measure your page speed on a phone and list your active apps, with what each one brings to the campaign.
How long before Black Friday should you prepare your Shopify store?: Four weeks are enough for a store that is already live, provided you stop changing the code a week before. In 2026, Black Friday falls on November 27: the list of products, discounts and apps is drawn up at the end of October, campaign pages are built on a copy of the theme in early November, and the copy is published and tested by November 20 at the latest. After that date, only copy and images change, from the theme editor. If the store needs a redesign, a theme change or a migration, it is too late for this year: a project of that size published in November carries more risk than it brings in sales. Better to start it in January, when traffic comes down, and prepare this year with the current store.
Can you show a struck-through price during Black Friday in France?: Yes, provided the struck-through price is the lowest price charged during the 30 days before the reduction. This is article L112-1-1 of the French Consumer Code, and the DGCCRF says it checks these announcements during major sales events, Black Friday included. In practice, if a product sold at the same price all through October and is discounted on November 27, that October price can serve as the reference. If it was raised in early November, the reference price remains the lowest of the last 30 days, so the old one. For successive reductions, for example a discount extended and increased until Christmas, the reference stays the price before the first reduction. You can also show only the percentage off, calculated on that same reference price. Note down your October prices before launching the campaign.
How many discount codes can a customer use on one Shopify order?: A customer can use at most five product or order discount codes and one shipping code on the same order, according to the Shopify Help Center. A store can also have at most 25 active automatic discounts at once, including those created by apps. When an automatic discount and codes coexist, Shopify applies the best possible combination for the customer, provided each discount has been allowed to combine with the other discount classes in its settings. That setting causes most surprises: a Black Friday automatic discount that blocks the newsletter welcome code, or two discounts that stack and wipe out the margin. Test every campaign code in a real cart, alone and then with the automatic discount, before sending any campaign.
What should you do if your Shopify store goes down in the middle of Black Friday?: First check whether the problem comes from Shopify or from your store. The Shopify Status page shows in seconds whether the platform has an ongoing incident; if so, nobody can fix it for you, and the best move is to tell your customers on social media. If Shopify is working, the problem is in your store: the latest theme change, an app or a discount. If you kept a copy of the theme from before the last publish, republish it: it takes one click and fixes most display or cart failures. Then switch off the suspect app and test an order. All of this assumes a reachable person has access to the store over the weekend, and that this was decided before November 27.