Can you hear it? Yep, it’s the sound of Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) loading – and if you run a Shopify store, that might fill you with a range of emotions.
If that strange mix of excitement (“This could be our biggest weekend ever!”) and low-key dread (“If one more thing breaks, I might actually cry”) is starting to percolate, we’re here to help with a few ultra practical tips and tricks you can action ahead of time.
We’ve all been through enough BFCMs to know the pattern by now: high intent, high stakes and roughly 10,000 tiny admin tasks that all want attention at once. That’s where automation really earns its keep. Smart Shopify workflows can knock the corners off the chaos, helping you move faster, respond smarter and actually… enjoy the sales surge instead of firefighting it?
Here are five Arigato workflows that zap common bottlenecks to keep your Shopify store running like the well-oiled (and likely caffeinated) machine it deserves to be.
1. Email a Coupon When a Customer is Tagged
The bottleneck: Manually sending coupons to segmented customers sounds fine in theory – until you’re juggling 1,200 “VIPs” and trying to remember who got which offer. It’s an instant recipe for missed opportunities and marketing misfires.
Why it matters for BFCM: During peak sales, timing is everything. The faster you can reward loyalty or nudge hesitant shoppers, the more conversions you capture. Lag by even a few hours and your carefully crafted offer might arrive after they’ve already checked out with a competitor.
How this flow fixes it: Automate the whole thing. Tag a customer as “VIP,” “High Spender,” or “Influencer,” and Arigato instantly fires off the right coupon email. No human intervention required. You stay responsive and consistent, even when your inbox is in melt down mode.
2. Sync New Customers to Mailchimp
The bottleneck: Exporting customer data manually between Shopify and your email platform. You tell yourself you’ll do it weekly – but between order fulfilment and last-minute promo tweaks, that “weekly” turns into “...next month?”
Why it matters for BFCM: You’re capturing a surge of new customers. Every one of them is a potential repeat buyer – if you can get them into your nurture flow quickly. Letting those emails pile up means losing momentum (and money.)
How this flow fixes it: Arigato automatically adds every new customer to your Mailchimp audience the moment they check out. No CSVs, no “oops, forgot to upload.” Just smooth, instant syncing – so your welcome sequence can start doing its job while you focus on everything else.
3. Tag First-Time Customers and Update After Their Second Order
The bottleneck: Trying to identify who’s brand new versus who’s returning. It’s doable manually when you’ve got a trickle of orders. But come BFCM? It’s like playing spreadsheet whack-a-mole.
Why it matters for BFCM: First-time customers are your biggest growth lever during the sales rush. You want to welcome them properly, build trust and track when they come back for more. But if you can’t separate them from your regulars, your messaging gets muddled – fast.
How this flow fixes it: Automatically tag every new customer on their first order (then automatically update their tag after their second.) That means you can create segmented experiences that evolve as your relationship does. No more guesswork, just squeaky clean data and better retention strategy baked right in.
4. Automatically Update Product SEO Titles, Descriptions, and Handles
The bottleneck: SEO updates often fall to the bottom of the to-do list – somewhere between “restock packaging” and “finally eat lunch.” But stale titles and clunky descriptions quietly cost you traffic and sales. No one wants that during the busy holiday season.
Why it matters for BFCM: This is the weekend when organic discovery really spikes. Shoppers are Googling like crazy to find the best deals, and every keyword tweak helps. But who has the time (or the will) to manually optimise 300 product listings at your busiest time of year?
How this flow fixes it: Set up a smart rule to automatically update your SEO titles, descriptions or handles when you adjust products. No copy-pasting, no missed updates, no SEO gaps. It’s one of those “set it and forget it” automations that quietly does heroic work behind the scenes.
5. Receive Daily Store Order Activity Summaries
The bottleneck: Keeping a clear overview of your store’s performance without refreshing your dashboard 47 times a day. It’s easy to lose sight of the big picture when you’re deep in the weeds of fulfilment and support.
Why it matters for BFCM: When the volume spikes, you need instant visibility – what’s selling, what’s slowing, what’s trending. But manually checking analytics eats up precious focus (and your will to live.)
How this flow fixes it: Get a daily summary delivered straight to your inbox or Slack. Orders, revenue, top products, all in one neat and tidy digest. You start every day informed and ready to act, not react.
Let Your Store Flow (So You Don’t Have To)
BFCM doesn’t have to mean burnout. A handful of well-placed Shopify automations can clear out the repetitive admin, help you scale faster and keep your sanity intact – even when the orders are flying in.
Set up these five Arigato workflows today, and future-you (and your customers) will thank you when the sales storm hits.