Five easy things to do TODAY to ensure you win BFCM

It's Q4, let's do this thing

Oct 09, 2025

Hi team,

This newsie comes to you from a small coffee shop tucked into the Baixa neighborhood of Lisbon. We’re staying at a nearby Hyatt (points, obviously).

We just spent three days at Quinta da Comporta in Comporta, aka the Hamptons of Portugal. Both kids came along, so while it’s not exactly a vacation, it’s a change of scenery, and we’ll take what we can get.

This is country number 37 for me. Flights and hotels were fully covered with points.

(To be fair, I’ve yet to pay for a hotel stay in my life 🙃)

I didn’t leave the country until I was 20. Noah is four, and this is his eighth country outside the US. I don’t know if I should be proud or tired. Probably both.

Anyway.

It’s Q4 and I’m hearing from a lot of folks that things feel wobbly. ChatGPT added shopping last week. Tariffs are still hanging over everyone’s head. Costs are up. And most brands are walking into BFCM with a plan that’s half-baked at best.

So here are five things you can actually do today to make sure this year doesn’t suck.

The kids are waiting for me, so I’ll make it a quick and punchy one.

Clock’s ticking, let’s go.

This week’s newsie is brought to you by Tapcart.

They just dropped the 2025 BFCM Report, and I genuinely think it’s the best one out there this year.

It pulls together insights from thousands of shoppers, performance data across Tapcart’s network, and swipeable strategies from brands like SKIMS, Our Place, BÉIS, and Glossier.

It’s not just glossy slides and vibes. It’s packed with actual tactics and step-by-step breakdowns you can use right now.

Here’s a taste of what’s inside:

How one 13-product early-access drop broke a brand’s single-day sales record
Loyalty plays that extend BFCM revenue into January
Real AOV lifts from bundling, perks, and intelligent segmentation
How brands are stacking SMS, push, and email to beat single-channel blasts

It also features advice from a bunch of folks who have been in the trenches.

You’ll hear from Grace Clarke, Chase Dimond, Chloe Pascal, Nate Rosen, Laura Forsyth, and yes, yours truly.

They cover everything from how to stop treating VIPs like everyone else, to why earlybird sales still move inventory, to how to use data from BFCM to drive retention through Q1.

If you’re going to download one BFCM resource this year, let it be this one.

👉 Grab the free report

FIVE STUPID SIMPLE BFCM TIPS

1. Keep your offer stupid simple

Saw this from Nate Lagos last week:

At OLIPOP, while other brands were running tiered promos that needed a spreadsheet to decode, we just did 25% off everything. No exclusions or fine print. At some point, we had an issue where subscription customers’ discount was lower than the BFCM one, so we even suggested they pause their subscription and stock up at a better discount…

Sure, we probably left some money on the table. But way more people actually finished checkout instead of rage-quitting because they couldn’t figure out if the bundle qualified or if they needed to add one more item to hit free shipping.

Simple converts better than complicated.

2. Find your future whales and treat them differently

Pull everyone who’s spent over $150 (or whatever your top quartile of LTV is) in the last 365 days. Or anyone who’s ordered twice since September. Or people who click every email but haven’t bought in a month. These are your high-potential customers.

Tag them now. Give them early access before you blast the main list. Send them a text that doesn’t feel like it went to 10,000 other people. Show them a bundle no one else sees.

Don’t lump them in with your general BFCM chaos and hope they find you. They won’t.

3. Map your segmentation now, not at 9pm on Thanksgiving

Take an hour or two today and decide:

Who gets which offer
Who sees the app notification first vs. the email
Who gets pushed bundles vs. bestsellers
Who should be excluded entirely because they just ordered yesterday

Write it down or map it out on Figjam/Miro and share it with your team. Save the filters in Klaviyo.

When it’s go time, you’ll be three sends deep while everyone else is still building segments and second-guessing themselves.

4. Build the flow for what happens after someone buys

Most brands stop thinking after the first conversion. That’s the mistake.

Someone just bought from you for the first time during BFCM. Now what? Do they get a post-purchase upsell? A thank-you text three days later? A winback email in mid-January if they don’t come back?

Decide now. Set it up now. BFCM buyers who don’t hear from you again until Valentine’s Day aren’t coming back.

5. Test your checkout flow on your actual phone

I can’t believe I have to say this, but half the brands I work with have never completed a purchase on their own site using their phone. Most traffic comes via mobile.

Do it today. Use your personal credit card. Go through the whole thing. See where it’s clunky. See where people are probably dropping off.

If it takes you four taps to apply a discount code, can’t x out of the pop-up or accept the cookies, or if the shipping options are confusing, fix it. You’ve got a few weeks. This is not the time to assume everything works.