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How a Shopify brand handled a 6x Black Friday surge without missing a dispatch.
A Skillfi fractional COO ran a 10-week peak-season plan across inventory, dispatch and customer care. The biggest weekend in the brand's history shipped on time, and the support inbox stayed under control.
The year's best sales week, and its worst customer experience.
Nearly a third of the brand's revenue lands in November and December. The year before, orders jumped 5x overnight on Black Friday and operations couldn't keep up. The warehouse fell four days behind, and because inventory wasn't synced between Shopify, Amazon and the warehouse, 9% of products sold that weren't actually in stock.
Customers did what customers do: they asked where their orders were. The support inbox hit 3,800 unanswered tickets, first response time stretched to 52 hours, and refunds and chargebacks spiked. By January, the brand's review rating had slipped from 4.6 to 4.1 stars.
We spent all year building demand, then spent January apologising to the customers we'd just won.
Founder & CEO, client
Plan for peak like a launch, not a bad week.
We treated Black Friday as a ten-week operations project with one owner. Stock, dispatch and support were planned together, proactive shipping updates and back-in-stock alerts ran on marketing automation, and an AI assistant handled order-status questions.
Forecast, pre-build and sync
SKU-level forecasts for the top 120 products, stock built ahead for best sellers, and real-time sync across Shopify, Amazon and the warehouse, with "notify me" flows instead of overselling.
A warehouse built for 6x
Order priority rules, pre-packed kits for the top 15 products, a second shift, a 3PL overflow partner on standby and an hourly dispatch dashboard.
Answer fast, or before they ask
Eight extra agents trained in a 2-day bootcamp, macros for the 25 most common questions, a refreshed help centre, a self-service tracking page and proactive updates by email and text.
Ten weeks to peak, week by week
From last year's post-mortem to a calm, record-breaking Black Friday weekend. Here's how the plan unfolded.
- Week 1–2120 SKUs forecast
Post-mortem & forecast
We traced exactly where last year broke down, then forecast demand for the products that drive most of peak revenue.
- Week 3–43 channels synced
Inventory sync & stock build
Real-time stock sync across every channel, low-stock alerts, and purchase orders placed early for best sellers.
- Week 5–62nd shift + 3PL
Dispatch plan
Priority rules, pre-packed kits, a second warehouse shift and a 3PL overflow partner signed and tested.
- Week 7–88 agents trained
Customer care setup
Temporary agents hired and trained, macros written, help centre refreshed and the AI chat assistant switched on.
- Week 9Full load test
Dry run
A full rehearsal of peak-day volume across warehouse and support, with every weak point fixed before it mattered.
- Week 1098% in 48 hrs
Black Friday war room
Daily stand-ups, an hourly dashboard and clear escalation rules carried the brand through its biggest weekend ever.
Four workstreams that kept peak week calm
Most peak-season failures start weeks earlier, in stock, staffing or systems. The playbook fixed each one before the first Black Friday order arrived.
Never oversell
- Forecasts for the top 120 SKUs
- Real-time sync across 3 channels
- "Notify me" instead of oversell
Out the door fast
- Expedited first, then oldest
- Pre-packed kits for the top 15
- 2nd shift & 3PL overflow
Support at scale
- 8 trained temporary agents
- 25 macros & a refreshed help centre
- AI chat for order status
Updates before they ask
- Confirmed, shipped & delivery alerts
- Delay notices sent early
- Self-service tracking page
Black Friday to Cyber Monday
First response time to customers
Customers got an answer in hours, not days, even on the busiest weekend of the year.
Our biggest weekend ever, and our support inbox was quieter than a normal Tuesday. Customers knew where their orders were before they thought to ask.
Head of Customer Experience, clientDreading your next peak season?
A fractional COO will plan your stock, dispatch and customer care together, then run the war room when volume hits. Customer updates can run on marketing automation, and our wider fractional leadership bench can cover finance or marketing too.
- SKU forecasts & real-time inventory sync
- A dispatch plan with overflow capacity
- A customer care plan that scales
- A peak-week war room & dashboard
30 minutes. No obligation.
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