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Pricing · 9 min read

Should Handmade Sellers Do Black Friday Sales? Mostly No, and Here Is What to Run Instead

The usual Black Friday advice for small shops is to discount because everyone does. Four of its claims fall apart for a handmade seller, one exception holds up, and a full-price weekend plan usually earns more.

Overhead view of holiday craft supplies on a white table: cinnamon sticks, pine cones, evergreen sprigs, white taper candles, a star cookie cutter and silver candle clips beside a drift of white angel hair

Most handmade shops should not run a Black Friday sale. Not a smaller one, not a "just this once" one, and not the 20%-off-everything banner that so many marketing checklists in your inbox recommend this week.

That is not because discounts are evil. It is because the advice was written for a different kind of seller, and it borrows its logic from a season where the deepest discounts sit in electronics and toys. A shop that pours candles in a converted laundry room is not in that fight, and pretending to be costs real money.

The short version:

  • The deepest holiday-season discounts were in electronics and toys (opens in new tab), where shoppers can compare the same product across many stores. Your product has no identical twin, so there is no price war for you to lose.
  • More than half (opens in new tab) of holiday shopping was still undone over Thanksgiving weekend, so skipping the sale does not mean missing the season.
  • A discount buyer has told you what brought them. Check whether last year's came back before you buy more of them.
  • A free add-on above an order threshold usually costs a fraction of a percentage-off sale.
  • The honest exception: discount stock that will be worth less in January, and only that stock.

Each of the first four sections takes one claim from the standard advice and answers it. The fifth names the exception, and the sixth puts the plan together. One composite maker keeps the numbers concrete: call her Dana. She sells soy candles at $28, and with wax, wick, jar, label, fragrance and her own time counted, each one costs her $11.20 to make.

"Shoppers expect a deal, so you have to discount"

Shoppers expect a deal on a television. Adobe's 2025 holiday season report (opens in new tab) found that online discounts peaked at 30.9% off list price in electronics, 29.6% in toys and 25.1% in apparel. Electronics and toys especially are categories where the same model number sits in a dozen carts at once, and the cheapest one tends to win.

Dana's Fig and Cedar candle is not sold anywhere else. A shopper cannot open another tab and find it for $6 less, so the logic that makes a 30% markdown necessary at a big-box store never reaches her shop. Holiday shoppers are mostly buying gifts: the National Retail Federation (opens in new tab) reported that about two-thirds of shoppers' average holiday spending over the 2025 Thanksgiving weekend ($225.74 of $337.86) went to gifts.

What to run instead: give the gift buyer what they came for at full price. Put Dana's three best scents in a box with a ribbon and a card, priced as its own product rather than as a discount on its parts. The guide to pricing gift sets and bundles walks through costing the box, the filler and the assembly minutes so the set earns more than the candles sold one at a time, not less.

"Everyone shops that weekend, so it is now or never"

The crowd is real. NRF counted (opens in new tab) a record 202.9 million people shopping between Thanksgiving Day and Cyber Monday in 2025. In the same release it found that shoppers still had 53% of their holiday shopping left to do as of Thanksgiving weekend.

So the weekend is the start of the season, not the whole of it. A shop that skips the sale has not skipped December. A shop that keeps its prices steady gives December shoppers no sale price to wait for, and as the shipping deadlines get closer, "arrives in time" starts to matter more than "costs less."

What to run instead: spend the weekend telling people when to order. USPS has published Thursday, December 17 (opens in new tab) as its 2026 Ground Advantage send-by date for Christmas delivery in the lower 48. Dana's order-by date needs her own production time on top of that, and the 2026 holiday shipping deadlines guide shows how to count back from the carrier's date to your last batch. A clear "order by December 10 for Christmas" line on the listing gives a shopper a reason to buy now that costs Dana nothing.

"It is only 20%. You can afford 20%."

This is the claim that does the most damage, because it sounds like a small number. The 20% comes off the price, but it comes out of the profit.

At $28 Dana keeps $16.80 a candle. At 20% off she keeps $11.20, so a third of her profit on each candle is gone. To earn the same money over the weekend she has to sell half again as many candles: 150 where she would have sold 100, poured, labeled and packed over the same long weekend. The discount break-even math post has the formula behind that and shows how the required lift climbs as your margin gets thinner. If you would rather not do the algebra, the free Discount Strategy Simulator runs it for your own prices.

All of this assumes you know your margin. It is easy not to, at least not to the cent, because the jar went up in March and the fragrance oil in August and nobody re-ran the numbers. Ardent Seller works out cost of goods from each product's recipe, with materials, labor and packaging included, and recalculates it when a material cost changes. Its Pricing Health report flags anything priced below cost and lets you try a price before you commit to it, so the 20% gets tested against a real number.

What to run instead: a gift with purchase. Dana's 2-ounce travel tin costs her $2.10 to make. Given free on orders over $50, it costs her $2.10 per qualifying order. On a $60 cart, 20% off would have cost her $12. Dana announces the free tin on every listing and in her shop announcement, and adds it when she packs. The buyer gets something that tends to read as a bonus, and Dana's margin on the candles they actually bought stays intact.

"A sale brings in new customers"

It does bring in customers. It is less clear what kind. A buyer who arrived for 20% off has told you what brought them, and there is no rule that says they will be back in March at full price.

Dana does not have to guess, and neither do you. Last year's Black Friday buyers are already in your order history. Count how many of them ordered again at full price, and compare that with your other new customers from the same quarter. If the sale buyers came back at the same rate, the sale may have bought something real. If they did not, it bought one weekend of revenue at a discount. Ardent Seller's customer retention report groups customers by the month of their first purchase and shows how many bought again, and it can be filtered by customer group. Put last year's sale buyers in a group, filter to them, and set the result beside your other new customers.

What to run instead: reward the customers you already have. Send the gift sets to your existing buyers a couple of days before you announce them to everyone else, at full price. Early access costs nothing, it treats loyal customers as the priority they are, and the people who already like your work are often the likeliest to buy a second one as a gift.

When a Black Friday sale does make sense: stock worth less in January

A Black Friday sale earns its place in one case: stock that will be worth less in January than it is today.

Dana poured 60 Peppermint Bark candles in October. On December 26 nobody wants a candle that smells like Christmas, and by next November the fragrance may have faded on the shelf. Marking those 60 down on Black Friday turns stock with a shelf life into cash while the scent still sells. The same goes for a discontinued color, a holiday-print design, the last few of a product you are retiring, or anything with a best-by date.

The rule is to discount the item, not the shop. Dana's year-round Fig and Cedar stays at $28, and the Peppermint Bark gets a markdown deep enough to clear most of it over the weekend. The Discount Strategy Simulator shows what each depth costs her. A shopper who came for the sale finds it, and everyone else pays full price for the line that sells all year.

A full-price Black Friday weekend, start to finish

Put the pieces together and Dana's weekend looks like this:

  1. The week before: price the gift sets and set up their listings as drafts, set the order-by date, choose the stock to mark down, and check whether last year's sale buyers came back.
  2. Wednesday: publish the gift sets and send existing customers the link, at full price, with an early-access note.
  3. Friday through Monday: announce the gift sets to everyone. Every listing carries the order-by date for Christmas delivery.
  4. All weekend: orders over $50 get the free travel tin, announced on every listing and added at packing.
  5. All weekend: the Peppermint Bark, and only the Peppermint Bark, is marked down.
  6. In January: Dana compares the weekend's profit, not its revenue, with last year's sale. (Never run one? Compare it with an ordinary November weekend.)

The last step is the one that settles the argument. A banner that doubled revenue and shrank profit is not a better weekend, and you only find that out by counting what each order earned. If you want those numbers on hand before you decide on a sale price, start with your real cost per item: set up Ardent Seller free and see what each product actually earns.

See your real margin with a free Ardent Seller account

Free resources

Two free tools for checking a promotion before you run it:

This article is provided for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, tax, or business advice. Cost structures, pricing examples, and margin figures are illustrative and will vary by your specific circumstances. Consult a qualified accountant or small-business advisor before making financial decisions based on this content.

Frequently asked questions

Usually not as a sitewide percentage off. The deepest holiday-season discounts were in categories like electronics and toys, where shoppers can compare the same product across many stores, and a handmade item has no identical twin to compare against. Most makers do better with a full-price weekend built around gift-ready packaging, a free add-on above an order threshold and an early look for existing customers.

When it clears stock that will be worth less in January than it is now: seasonal scents, holiday designs, discontinued colors or anything near the end of its shelf life. Discount those items specifically, and leave the year-round line at full price.

Often, because it costs you what the gift costs to make, not a share of the whole order. A small add-on that costs about $2 to make, given on orders over $50, costs a fraction of what 20% off the same order gives away, and it tends to read as a bonus.

Sometimes, but a buyer who arrived for a discount has told you what brought them. Check before you repeat the sale: compare how many of last year's Black Friday buyers ordered again at full price with how many of your other new customers did.

Keep prices where they are and make the weekend about the gift: gift-ready sets, wrapping included, a free add-on over a threshold, a clear order-by date for Christmas delivery and an early-access window for your existing customers.

See your real margin with a free Ardent Seller account