The safe sale checklist for Shopify: before, during and after Black Friday.

The checklist

Tick each step as you go. Your ticks are kept in this browser only, so you can close the page and come back. Print it for the team, or work through it here.

• Choose how the sale will runAn automatic discount with an end date, Launchpad on Shopify Plus, or changed prices with a compare-at price. Only the first two end on their own; see three ways to run a sale.
• Check every product's markdown against its floorThe lowest price that still covers cost, card fee, shipping and returns. The markdown calculator works it out per product.
• Check your markets for fixed pricesA fixed price on a market overrides the price and compare-at price set in the admin, so a base-price sale will not reach that market.¹
• Check how your theme shows a saleWhether and where sale prices appear depends on the theme.¹ Look at a product page and a collection page for a product that already has a compare-at price.
• Set the end date and time, and write them downDiscounts expire at the end time in the time zone shown in your admin.¹⁵ Put the end in the team calendar with a name next to it.

• Export every product the sale touches to CSVProducts, Export, "Products that match your search and filters". An export of a search arrives by email.² The file has the Price, Compare-at price and Cost per item columns.³
• Keep that file unchanged, with the date in its nameSave a second copy somewhere other than your computer. Edit only copies of it.
• Note the products that already show a saleRows with a Compare-at price above the Price. Decide whether the sale keeps, replaces or ends those reductions.
• Selling in the EU: note the lowest price of the last 30 daysA reduction must be shown against it. See the 30-day rule.

• Build the new prices next to the old onesIn a copy of the export: old price, new price, new compare-at price and what each unit keeps. Sort by the last column and look at the bottom rows.
• Every compare-at price higher than its new priceOtherwise the sale does not show.¹
• Blank, not 0.00, where there is no saleA compare-at price of 0.00 is a value, not an empty field.¹
• Same compare-at pattern on every variant of a productCollection pages show a product's general pricing, so mixed variants keep it from showing as on sale there.¹
• Try one product firstChange one product, then look at its product page, a collection page, the cart and checkout, in each market you sell to.
• Using an app: read its preview before you confirmThe list of every variant it will change, old and new price. If it has no preview, test it on a few products first.

• Apply the change the way you previewed itThe import, the bulk editor, the app or the discount, with the same file and the same products.
• Check five products on the storefrontIncluding one from each collection in the sale and one in each market.
• Discount: confirm the status and the end dateA discount without an end date does not expire.⁴ A store can have at most 25 active automatic discounts.⁵
• Ask the team not to edit prices during the saleOr to note every edit. A price changed mid-sale is the one a revert gets wrong.

• Check a sample of prices and the app's statusThe same five products each morning; any error or warning in the app.
• If a sale app misbehaves, stop it from inside the appNever by uninstalling it. See if a sale app fails.

• Find the prices someone changed during the saleCompare a fresh export with your preview. Decide which price is right before anything overwrites it.
• Put the prices backEnd the sale in the app, let Launchpad change prices back,⁷ or re-import your saved file. See revert.
• Clear compare-at prices that are no longer a saleUnless a product is meant to stay reduced.
• Deactivate or check the end of every sale discountOn the Discounts page.⁶

• Collection "Compare-at price is set"A temporary automated collection with that condition lists the products still carrying a compare-at price.⁹ Keep it off your sales channels and delete it after.
• Compare a new export with the old oneEvery row where Price or Compare-at price differs from the file you saved before the sale.
• Discounts filtered by Active statusThe Discounts list filters by status.⁶ Anything still active that belonged to the sale.
• Market price listsFixed sale prices you imported for a market stay until you change them.
• Banners, badges and timers in the themeSale announcement bars, countdowns and "Black Friday" badges. Turn them off or remove them.
• Keep the recordThe before file, the preview and what sold at which price. Next year's sale starts from it, and in the EU it shows your prior prices.

31 steps. The ticks stay in this browser until you press Reset; nothing is sent to us.

Three ways to run a sale on Shopify

Shopify has two ways to make a sale start and stop on its own, and one that changes the prices themselves. They behave differently at the end, and that is where sales go wrong.

A discount is the safest by design: no price is ever written, so there is nothing to put back. Its cost is that most themes show the saving only in the cart and at checkout. Changed prices show the sale everywhere but need the most care, which is what most of this checklist is about.

Record the old prices

Before you change anything, go to Products, filter to what the sale will touch, and choose Export with "Products that match your search and filters". An export of all products or of a search is emailed to you; the current page or a selection downloads straight away unless a product in it has more than 100 variants.² Each row carries the variant's Price, Compare-at price and Cost per item, and, for markets with their own catalogue, columns such as Price / International.³

That file is your record. Do not edit it; work on a copy. If an app or an import goes wrong, it is the only list of what every price was, and it is in a format Shopify can import back.

Preview before you change prices

A preview is the full list of changes, read before anything goes live. In a copy of the export, add the new price next to the old one, set the compare-at price, and add a column for what each unit keeps after cost and fees. The markdown calculator gives the floor for one product, and the same formula works in a spreadsheet column.

• Every compare-at price must be higher than the new price, or the product does not show as on sale.¹
• Where there is no sale, leave the compare-at price blank: 0.00 counts as a value.¹
• Give every variant of a product the same treatment, or collection pages will not show it as on sale.¹
• Change one product first and look at it as a shopper would, in each market.

The bulk editor can show price and compare-at price columns for many products at once, and Shopify suggests a CSV file for larger changes.⁸ Whichever you use, keep the reviewed copy: it is also your list of what to put back.

Schedule it safely

A discount takes a start date and, if you click Set end date, an end date; without an end date it does not expire.⁴ It expires at the end time in the time zone shown in your admin, so check that before you promise "ends at midnight".¹⁵ On Shopify Plus, a Launchpad event changes prices and compare-at prices for its window and changes them back when it ends.⁷

A price you change on the product page, in the bulk editor or by import changes when you save. To schedule changed prices without Plus you need an app, and then the questions that matter are how it records the old prices, whether it shows you a preview, and what it puts back at the end.

Compare-at price not showing

When a product does not show as on sale, it is almost always one of these, in this order:

1. The compare-at price is not higher than the price. It must be, to display the sale.¹
2. The page is a collection page and the variants differ. Collection pages show the product's general pricing; make every variant consistent.¹
3. The market has a fixed price. Fixed prices override the price and compare-at price set in the admin; market sale prices are set by CSV import.¹
4. The theme does not show it there. Where sale prices display depends on the theme.¹
5. It is a discount, not a sale price. Discount savings are crossed out at checkout; on product and collection pages that needs an app or custom work.¹

If a sale app fails or is uninstalled mid-sale

An app can only change or restore prices while it is installed. When a store uninstalls an app, its access ends at once and every request it makes is refused.¹⁰ Whatever prices it last wrote stay as they are, and putting them back is then up to you. Shopify also asks every app to erase a store's data 48 hours after it is uninstalled,¹¹ so reinstalling later may not bring back its record of your old prices.

1. Do not uninstall it. Not to "reset" it, not to try another app first.
2. Stop the sale from inside the app, with its own end, revert or stop button, and read what it reports back.
3. Write to the developer through the support link on its App Store listing, with the time it went wrong and two example products.
4. Decide whether to wait or restore. If the sale prices are acceptable, leaving them until the developer answers is often safer than a hurried import.
5. Restore from your own file if the app cannot: see below. Then check every product the app touched.

Once the prices are right, you can remove the app. App blocks it added to an Online Store 2.0 theme are removed with it;¹² banners or timers it asked you to paste into the theme are not app blocks, so look for them yourself.

Revert sale prices and check for leftovers

If an app or Launchpad ran the sale, let it end the sale and put the prices back. Otherwise, restore from the file you saved:

1. Export the sale products again and compare with your saved file. Any row where the price is neither the old nor the sale price was changed by someone during the sale: decide which price is right.
2. In a copy of the saved file, keep the Handle column, the option name and value columns, Price and Compare-at price, and delete the rest. A column that is not in the file is left as it is; a blank cell clears the field.³ Leaving out a column whose related columns you keep can remove data, which is why the option columns stay.³
3. Import it with "Overwrite products with matching handles" selected; without it, products that already exist are skipped.³ Try a file with one product first.
4. For markets with fixed prices, restore the Price / [market] and compare-at columns the same way.³

Then look for what the sale left behind. A temporary automated collection with the condition Compare-at price is set lists every product that still carries a compare-at price, and is not set matches a product when any variant has none.⁹ On the Discounts page, filter by status and deactivate whatever is still active from the sale.⁶ Finally, remove sale banners, badges and countdowns from the theme.

The EU and UK 30-day lowest price

In the EU, when you announce a price reduction to consumers, the prior price you show must be the lowest price you charged in the 30 days before it, under Article 6a of the Price Indication Directive; the Court of Justice confirmed in 2024 that a percentage off must be worked out from that price too.¹³ So a product that was €40 on 1 November, €50 from 10 November and €35 on Black Friday cannot be shown as "30% off €50": the reference is €40, and the saving is 12.5%. The UK has no fixed 30-day rule, but its pricing guidance expects a "was" price to be the last price you sold at, charged recently and for at least as long as the sale runs, and asks you to keep records that show it.¹⁴ Raising prices in early November to discount them later is exactly what both rules catch.

Tools that help

Everything above works with Shopify's own admin and a spreadsheet. Two free tools make the planning faster:

• The markdown calculator gives each product's margin floor after card fees, shipping, returns and VAT, and what every 5% step leaves you.
• Store Diagnosis, our free, read-only Shopify app, finds the stock that has stopped selling, values it at cost and suggests a markdown for each product that stays above cost plus 5%. It never changes a price, so it is safe to run on the busiest week of the year.

We are also building Mufatech Clearance, an app that runs this checklist for you: a preview of every price before it changes, a margin floor no markdown can cross, a record of every price it writes so it puts back exactly those, an alert when someone else changes a price mid-sale, and a Stop all button to use before you ever uninstall it. It is coming to the Shopify App Store and cannot be installed yet. When it is listed it will have a Free plan, and Pro at $3.99 a month.

Frequently asked questions