Last-Minute Holiday DTC Checklist: 8 Quick Wins Before Black Friday

It's late November 2025, and holiday ecommerce is about to reach peak intensity. Black Friday is just days away. If you haven't started your holiday prep for your users, you're not alone, and you're not out of time but it's getting close.

US holiday retail sales are projected to grow just 1.2% year-over-year, while ecommerce is expected to rise 4.2%. That growth is still available, but only to merchants who execute quickly. Today's shoppers are comparing prices across platforms, starting earlier than ever, and expecting seamless mobile experiences from discovery to checkout.

While most merchants are scrambling with last-minute fixes, this holiday ecommerce checklist delivers eight high-impact moves that separate profitable Q4s from missed opportunities.

Let's make every remaining day count with high-impact moves that deliver immediate results for your 2025 holiday season.

1. What Were Last Year's Best Sellers?

The fastest Black Friday preparation starts with data, not guesswork. Pull the sales data from last year's Black Friday and Cyber Monday before you highlight new promotions.

Identify your top 10 to 20 SKUs by revenue. These products are your biggest conversion drivers. Check their current stock levels immediately. This is the core of effective holiday inventory management.

Look at profit margins, fulfillment speed, and return rates for these top SKUs. A best-seller with thin margins and high returns might not deserve your biggest promotional push. Prioritize products that combine strong sales velocity with healthy unit economics; these are your true winners worth double-stocking.

Now that you know what to promote, make sure your site is ready for the traffic surge.

2. Is Your Site Up to Speed?

A slow site kills sales faster than any product will. Since most holiday shopping happens on smartphones, focus on mobile performance.

Why Site Speed Equals Revenue

Site speed equals revenue. Studies show that a 1-second delay in mobile load time can drop conversions by 7%. For a store doing $500K in holiday sales, that's $35,000 left on the table. A slow site will cost you thousands during peak traffic.

Quick Fixes You Can Implement Now

Run your site through Google PageSpeed Insights or WebPageTest to identify red flags. Focus on fixing issues that impact speed and mobile performance.

• Compress Images: Use compression tools to reduce file size on all product images and banners.
• Clear Clutter: Remove unnecessary plugins, apps, or code that aren't essential for checkout.
• Enable Caching: Make sure browser caching is enabled to speed up visits from returning customers.

Test on Real Devices

Run a PageSpeed test. Fix critical issues like uncompressed images and test your entire checkout flow on mobile. If you're on Miva, the platform handles high traffic spikes, but you still need to optimize images and custom code.

Set Performance Benchmarks

Your site should hit these Core Web Vitals minimums for mobile:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Under 2.5 seconds
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): Under 0.1

If you're not there yet, prioritize LCP as it's the biggest conversion killer. Focus on image compression, above-the-fold content optimization, and reducing third-party scripts.

3. Do You Have Email Campaigns Set Up?

Your email list is your most reliable sales channel. Your Q4 ecommerce strategy needs five basic automated campaigns scheduled now to cover the key sales period. Use templates from platforms like Klaviyo or Mailchimp to save time.

Don't forget your subject lines. Use urgency and specificity: "Your Early Access Starts in 2 Hours" outperforms "Early Black Friday Sale." Test at least two subject lines for your Black Friday and Cyber Monday sends, as about 47% of people open emails based solely on the subject line.

Segment your list by past purchasers and new leads if possible. Personalized messages convert better. While you're scheduling these campaigns, draft a quick post-holiday email (Jan 2 to 3) to promote deals in the new year or clear leftover inventory. It takes 10 extra minutes now and can generate unexpected January revenue.

4. Do you have Buy Now, Pay Later Set Up?

The shift toward flexible payments is one of the clearest moves you can make before Cyber Monday. Shoppers expect payment choices that help them manage holiday budgets. This is a high-impact part of ecommerce checkout optimization.

Enabling BNPL options like Affirm or Klarna is critical. BNPL can increase average order value (AOV) by 20% to 40% during the holidays. For products priced $300+, the impact is even more dramatic. Customers are significantly more likely to complete checkout when they can split payments. The best thing to do would be to:

• Integrate the Service: Add a BNPL provider to your payment stack.
• Display Clearly: Show the BNPL message (something like "4 interest-free payments of $25") on all product pages.
• Promote: Feature payment flexibility in your Black Friday emails.

Add a BNPL provider to your checkout this week. Test the integration across mobile and desktop, and then prominently feature payment flexibility in your Black Friday campaign creative. Display the split-payment messaging on product pages for items over $100 since this is where BNPL drives the highest lift.

5. Do You Have Gift Guides Set Up?

Gift guides are essential on your holiday ecommerce checklist because they eliminate decision fatigue. You don't need a complex article or editorial feature, but just three quick, curated collections of your existing products. Three essential guides may include:

1. Gifts Under $50: Targets budget-conscious buyers and works great for stocking stuffers.
2. Best Sellers/Holiday Favorites: Features the top 20 items you identified as last year's best sellers. Use your proven and popular products.
3. Last-Minute Gifts: Include gift cards, digital products, or items you can ship quickly up to the final deadline.

Add a prominent banner and make these guides easy to find: add a "Holiday Gifts" tab to your main navigation, feature them in a homepage hero banner, and link to them in every promotional email from now through December 20.

Add a "Gifts That Ship Fast" badge to products with in-stock inventory and 2-day delivery capability. In the final week before Christmas, this becomes your most valuable collection as last-minute shoppers will filter specifically for guaranteed delivery, and you'll capture sales that would otherwise go to Amazon or other big competitors.

Build 3 gift guide collections in your ecommerce platform. Add banners and make sure they're visible on your homepage.

6. Do Your Top SKUs Have Inventory?

The single biggest threat to your holiday sales is selling out of your hero products during peak traffic. Stockouts during Black Friday weekend can cost you 15-30% of potential revenue. Right now, focus exclusively on your top 20 best-sellers as these SKUs deserve your full attention.

Your Action Plan

• Verify Stock: Confirm stock levels on your top 20 SKUs across all locations.
• Set Alerts: Set low-stock alerts in your platform so your team gets notified when stock hits a critical threshold (like 50 units remaining).
• Contact Suppliers: If stock is low, contact suppliers or distributors now to arrange emergency restocks for early December.

If you have physical stores, consider enabling Buy Online, Pick Up In Store (BOPIS) for your top sellers. This reduces shipping strain and gives last-minute shoppers a fast fulfillment option during the final week before Christmas.

Consider safety stock buffers. If a product sold 200 units during last year's Black Friday weekend, don't stock exactly 200. Add a 25-30% buffer for unexpected demand spikes, especially if social media or influencer coverage could drive unpredictable traffic. Better to have 20 extra units in January than to sell out during Cyber Monday.

Flag your top 20 SKUs. Verify stock levels and set alerts. Contact suppliers if needed. Running out of your best products during Cyber Week is the fastest way to hand sales directly to your competitors.

Don't let poor inventory planning kill your best month of the year.

7. Is Your Mobile Checkout Optimized?

Almost 60% of sales happen on mobile during the holidays, making ecommerce checkout optimization critical. If you only fix one thing, fix your mobile checkout flow. Your ecommerce checkout optimization audit should be done on a real phone.

Walk through your entire checkout process on your phone right now. Look for friction points:

1. Speed and Clarity: Are pages loading instantly, and are form fields easy to tap and fill?
2. Shipping Transparency: Are shipping calculations and costs clear? Customers won't be happy with surprises.
3. Payment Options: Are all payment options (digital wallets, BNPL) visible and working?

Fix any friction immediately. The easier it is to pay on a small screen, the higher your conversion rate will be. Test your checkout on at least three different devices (iPhone, Android, tablet) to catch platform-specific issues before launch. Miva's mobile-optimized checkout ensures fast, seamless transactions on any device.

Don't Forget Abandoned Cart Recovery

Even with a perfect checkout, 70% of mobile carts get abandoned. Set up automated cart recovery emails that trigger 1 hour, 24 hours, and 72 hours after abandonment. Include product images, a clear CTA, and consider offering free shipping or a small discount in the final reminder. During the holidays, these emails can recover 10-30% of otherwise lost revenue.

8. Are You Optimized For AI Shopping Assistants?

More holiday shoppers are using AI LLM tools like ChatGPT to research products and compare options. If your product data isn't structured for AI discovery, you're invisible to this growing segment.

Quick wins:

• Update product descriptions with natural language that answers common questions ("Is this waterproof?" "Does this work with iPhone?")
• Add structured data markup (schema.org Product schema) so AI tools can parse your pricing, availability, and specs
• Keep inventory status current across all channels so that AI tools prioritize in-stock products with clear shipping timelines

Think of this as SEO for AI. The retailers who optimize now will capture traffic that traditional paid ads and organic search can't reach.

The Final Word

You have just days until Black Friday sales begin, kicking off another busy holiday sales season. You can still execute all eight of these moves if you start today with #1 and #6 before Black Friday.

Audit your top 20 SKUs this afternoon. Test your mobile checkout tonight. Schedule your five email campaigns tomorrow. The merchants who ship these fixes by before Black Friday begins will capture that 4.2% ecommerce growth. The ones who wait will watch it go to faster competitors.

Don't be the merchant troubleshooting a broken checkout flow on November 28 while your competitors are already cashing out. Be the one who's already optimized, stocked, and ready to convert traffic into revenue from the first hour of Black Friday.