Every operation seems ready until Black Friday begins.
Every year it's the same: everyone talks about campaigns, discounts, and creating hype. But few people talk about what really makes a difference when the traffic actually arrives.
The good news?
There's still time to fix the foundation and do the basics right! That's exactly what this article will help you do.
Alce learned this behind the scenes of real operations , adjusting and testing high-performance e-commerce platforms daily—not just in theoretical presentations.
So, here's what we learned from observing hundreds of operations up close.
The difference between those who profit and those who survive.
Those who don't master their metrics scale up losses — not profits.
While some focus on likes and revenue, those who truly grow look at metrics that sustain profit .
- CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) – how much you actually pay to bring in a new customer.
- LTV (Lifetime Value) – how much revenue this customer generates over time.
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Actual Conversion Rate (CRO) – how well your journey transforms traffic into revenue.
🎯 UX/UI: The Battlefield of Conversion
During peak periods, poor UX is unforgiving — it's costly.
When users have to think too much, wait too long, or click too much, they simply leave.
Brands that maintain conversion rates even under pressure have a UX built to withstand chaos , with three pillars that support high-scale profits:
1️⃣ Clarity: the user understands in 3 seconds what is being sold, why it is relevant, and what to do next.
2️⃣ Fluidity: the path to checkout is clean, predictable, and distraction-free. Each step reduces friction, it doesn't add any.
3️⃣ Trust: everything communicates credibility — reviews, seals, return policy, deadlines. Every detail reduces purchase anxiety.
🛒 Checkout: where profits are locked in — or scaled
Black Friday exposes the truth: poorly configured checkout is costly.
Incorrect shipping costs, faulty coupons, or confusing fields are invisible bottlenecks that drain revenue and disrupt the flow of purchases.
The checkout is the point where all your investment turns into profit — or evaporates in seconds.
If your business runs on Shopify, here's our suite of solutions to optimize your checkout:
👉 Prego Checkout Tools gives merchants complete control over their shopping cart and checkout process , with intelligent rules that prevent errors and create opportunities for strategic upsells.
Define quantity limits, create specific rules for B2B or B2C, and add offers to the purchase flow — all without relying on code.
👉 Jataí comes in as the perfect complement: it customizes fields and order rules , reduces errors, and eliminates rework.
Collect critical data (such as number, address details, or delivery instructions) and simplify integrations with ERP, logistics, and payment gateways.
👉 Quati Discounts completes the cycle with dynamic discount rules that provide predictability to the margin.
Set up automatic promotions, validate coupon combinations, and ensure that every sale keeps profits under control.
💡 This is where Black makes its decision — between those who lose orders due to details and those who scale with predictability.
Optimized checkout isn't just about experience: it's about profit engineering.
🚀 SEO / SXO: visibility is key to sales
On Black Friday, what you can't find, you can't buy.
While some spend huge amounts of money on media to cover the basics, others reap the rewards of the traffic they've cultivated all year.
SEO is the silent engine of performance.
But today it goes beyond just showing up: It's about how you appear and what the user feels when they encounter you.
That's where SXO (Search Experience Optimization) comes in: the union between discoverability and experience.
Operations that scale organically have four solid foundations:
1️⃣ Impeccable technical structure: clean indexing, high speed, and Core Web Vitals up to date.
2️⃣ Category architecture driven by search intent: the store speaks the same language as the user.
3️⃣ Strategic content: top-of-funnel and middle-of-funnel materials that educate before selling — and build trust before the click.
4️⃣ SEO driven by SGE: Google's new generative search model changes everything — it's not enough to be optimized, you need to be understood by AI.
This requires contextual content, structured data, and real-world experience so that your brand is mentioned, recommended, and prioritized in generative responses.
📊 Tracking and measurement: the new marketing is predictable.
Black Friday is the worst time to discover that tracking doesn't work.
Without reliable data, you have no control.
Businesses that grow consistently don't wait for a pixel to break before acting. They build a solid measurement foundation before the campaign even begins.
1️⃣ GA4 configured by event or funnel , differentiating sessions, users, and actual conversions.
2️⃣ Active server-side tracking , reducing data loss and ensuring accuracy in decisions.
3️⃣ Real-time dashboard in Looker Studio , combining Shopify + GA4 to see the complete funnel.
🚚 Inventory and logistics: the invisible infrastructure that sustains Black Friday
On Black Friday, a broken promise costs more than a lost order, because it costs reputation.
And reputation gets lost in the details: an out-of-sync SKU, an incorrectly calculated shipping cost, an ERP system that doesn't communicate with the checkout.
Behind every operation that delivers on its promises, there is a silent but essential infrastructure .
It's what ensures the order arrives correctly, on time, and without any issues —even when traffic doubles.
📦 Post-purchase experience: where the customer decides whether to return
On Black Friday, the sale ends with the click — but trust begins with delivery.
After-sales service isn't "after the sale"—it's the moment when the promise becomes reality.
Each tracking email, each update, and each delivery detail reinforces (or destroys) the perceived value of the brand.
That's where the customer understands whether they bought from a store that cares — or from just another one that only wanted to sell.
Operations that build customer loyalty treat post-purchase as part of the journey, not as an add-on:
- Proactive communication: the customer never needs to ask "where's my order?".
- Logistics transparency: realistic deadlines, clear status updates, and fast support.
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Consistent experience: the same excellence from checkout to the arrival of the box.
💸 Pricing and margin strategy: not every discount is smart
On Black Friday, almost everyone sells, but few know how much profit they actually make.
The most common mistake? Discounting without a strategy.
It brings volume, but it also takes away your margin, your predictability, and sometimes your cash flow.
Businesses that grow sustainably treat price as a performance driver , not as an emotional trigger.
They understand where discounts accelerate conversion — and where they erode profit.
💡 This is where margin strategy and smart pricing come in.
Before applying any coupon, it's necessary to measure the real impact on COGS, CAC, and LTV.
The goal is not to sell more, it's to sell better .
📈 Mature brands use clear rules and constant measurement:
- Bundles, progressive discounts, and product mix with margin control.
- Distinguishing between conversion incentives and clearance campaigns.
- Financial clarity in every promotion — what generates profit and what only generates noise.
And for that, tools like Quati Discounts help to orchestrate discounts intelligently , validating combinations, avoiding errors, and ensuring that each promotion preserves profit.
Alce Rocks Advisory Audit — a 360º view for profitable scaling.
Most brands offer diagnostics.
Alce does even more: It offers an action plan that transforms diagnosis into real progress.
Advisory Auditing is a service created for those who want to understand why their operation isn't converting as it should, and what needs to change to scale profitably.
We delve into the entire operation, with both technical and strategic vision.
- UX and CRO: navigation, actual journey, checkout, and invisible friction points.
- SEO and performance: indexing, speed, search intent, and organic ranking.
- Tracking and data: does what you measure reflect what really happens?
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Benchmark and market: where do you stand in relation to the growing players?
Talk to Alce Rocks and discover Advisory Auditing — alce.rocks
💡 BONUS TIP: If you use Shopify, install:
Apps to optimize your Shopify store before Black Friday
Black Friday doesn't forgive deals that rely on spreadsheets and luck.
If the checkout process breaks, the discount fails, or the order arrives incomplete — the problem isn't the media, it's the workflow.
Here are three apps created by Alce Rocks to get your operation ready to scale safely and profitably:
1. Jataí — Custom Order Fields and Rules
Personalize the checkout process and eliminate operational errors.
Jataí allows you to create custom order fields and apply rules at checkout (such as street number validation, CPF [Brazilian tax ID], or delivery point).
Everything goes directly to the order (via note attributes ), facilitating integrations with ERP, logistics, and payments.
✅ Custom and required fields by product type or customer.
✅ Automatic validation at checkout (Extensibility)
✅ Simplified integration with ERPs and external systems
✅ Ideal for Brazilian operations that require complete and accurate data.
👉 Install Jataí on the Shopify App Store
2. Prego Checkout Tools — Rules and Upsells at Checkout
More control, fewer errors, more sales.
Prego helps B2C and B2B stores define rules in the shopping cart and checkout , limit product quantities, and apply upselling directly in the purchase flow .
It's the ideal app to prevent fraud, protect margins, and increase average order value — without needing a code.
✅ Create purchase limit rules per customer, tag, or product.
✅ Set up custom upsell and alerts at checkout (Shopify Plus)
✅ Optimize B2B and B2C workflow with cart control.
✅ Improve security and avoid errors before payment.
👉 Install Prego on the Shopify App Store
3. Quati Discounts — Dynamic and Intelligent Discounts
Turn discounts into a strategy, not a loss of margin.
Quati allows you to create dynamic discount rules based on payment method, tag, purchase behavior, or customer type.
You combine everything — order, product, and shipping — into a single coupon, and display personalized messages directly at checkout.
✅ Automatic discounts based on payment method (Pix, Boleto, etc.)
✅ Combination of rules in a single coupon
✅ Easy setup, no code required
✅ Full integration with Shopify's Discounts and Extensions system.
👉 Install Quati on the Shopify App Store
Let's talk?
If you want to accelerate your digital operation and implement these ideas in a practical and efficient way, rely on those who have already helped some of the biggest brands grow consistently.