Seasonal marketing 2026: sales plan for 11.11, emergency and New Years without loss of margin

Once a year, the founder writes to me a week before Black Friday: “give me a 40% discount, like everyone else.” Underneath this request is usually not a strategy, but panic - competitors have already hung up banners, and it seems that without minus 40% they will sweep you away. At this moment I ask one question: what is your margin. And in half the cases it turns out that the person was going to work for a year in order to distribute the goods to zero in November. This article is about how to get through the sales season and make money, and not close the cash register with a beautiful turnover and an empty account.

9 years in digital, and every November the same scene. Seasonal peaks are not the time to “give a discount.” This is the time when you have the most expensive traffic of the year and the highest willingness of people to buy. Trading it for a naked discount is the most expensive decision you can make. Next is the calendar, mechanics and calculations, which show the number before the start.

A sale is not about selling cheaper. It's about selling more to those who were already going to buy. Discount is the last tool on the list, not the first.

1. Peak calendar 2026: when and to whom

First up is the card of the year. The dates below are well-known: 11.11 is always November 11, Black Friday is the last Friday of November. Marketplaces shift their promotions by a day or two and stretch them out for a week, so look for the exact windows of Wildberries and Ozon in their account, and not in this table.

An important little thing that is highlighted: gender holidays and the New Year's peak are about gifts, not about price. A person is looking for what to give as a gift, and not where it is five percent cheaper. There is no need to take a discount there at all, packaging and delivery times work there. Black Friday and 11.11 - on the contrary, are purely price-based, you can’t go there without an offer.

2. Why “giving a discount like everyone else” kills margins

Simple arithmetic, which for some reason is not done before the start. Product for 1000 ₽, cost 600 ₽, margin 400 ₽ or 40%. You give a 30% discount - the price is 700 ₽, the profit per unit is already 100 ₽. Not minus 30% to profit. Minus 75%. To earn the same ruble as without the promotion, you need to sell four times as many pieces. Demand at the sale is growing, but not fourfold.

It gets worse. Traffic in November rises in price by 20-50%, because everyone comes to the auction at once. Competitors cut the price at the same time, and your minus 30% ceases to be an advantage - it’s just the new norm of the week. It turns out to be a trap: you pay more per click, give the product away cheaper and at the same time do not stand out. Three strikes on one margin.

I'm not against discounts. I am against discounting as a reflex. A discount is justified when you have a really fat margin, when you need to reset stock, or when the product is a “hook” for the first order with the expectation of repeated ones. In other cases, there are mechanics who move revenue without affecting the perceived price. About pricing in general - a separate analysis in the article about pricing strategy.

3. Mechanics without naked discount

What do I put instead of “minus 40% and pray.” Not all at once - two or three bundles are enough for one season.

• Bundles. Two products as a set are cheaper than individually, but more expensive than one. The average check is growing, the discount is spread across two positions and does not hit the margin of each as much.
• Gift with order. Instead of minus 500 ₽ - a gift item with a cost of 150 ₽. It is perceived as worth 500 rubles, but costs you 150 rubles. This is almost always mathematically more profitable than a direct discount.
• Upsell on check. On the payment page there is a relevant additional offer. The person has already made up his mind; adding another position is easier than bringing in a new customer.
• Early access for the base. The audience buys their email and Telegram a day earlier at the same price. You remove part of the peak without additional payment for traffic and increase loyalty - more about this in the material about loyalty program.
• Limit. Quantity or time. “First one hundred at this price” or a timer until the end of the day - speeds up the decision without deepening the discount.

In practice, the combination of “early access to the database plus a bundle” works best. The base gets a feeling of privilege, the bundle keeps the average check, and you connect external traffic only on main days, when conversion is already at its peak. At this point, the base needs to be warmed up in advance - the mechanics of warming up are discussed in the article about email marketing.

4. Preparation plan 6 weeks in advance

You can’t put together a campaign in three days. More precisely, it can be assembled, but it will be a “discount like everyone else” - because there is no time for mechanics, warming up and drainage. The working horizon is six weeks. Breakdown:

• Weeks 6-5. We calculate the margin for each position and choose the mechanics. This is the foundation, without it the rest is meaningless.
• Weeks 5-4. Warming up the base. A warm series of letters and posts, an announcement of early access, a gathering of those who will be waiting for you.
• Weeks 4-3. Content and offers. Creatives, landing page or cards, chains of letters for start, reminder and cutoff.
• Weeks 3-2. Stocks and purchases We budget the balances for the forecast, pay for the purchase in advance, and check the logistics.
• Weeks 2-1. Early access for the base. The base buys ahead of the market, taking some of the load off the peak.
• Start. Limit, deadline, final cutoff. Afterwards, we close the prices without a tail, so as not to accustom them to an eternal discount.

The most underrated part here is the warm-up. The sale is won not by the banner on the launch day, but by how many people came to it already warm. Cold traffic in November is expensive and converts poorly. The warm base that you've been telling all month what you're cooking converts many times better and costs almost free.

5. Calculation of the real stock margin before the start

The main number you need to know before you press “run”. Not turnover, not the number of orders - profit per unit after all deductions. Formula:

Profit from order = Discounted price
                 − Product cost
                 − Site commission
                 − Logistics and packaging
                 − Cost of traffic per order (CPO)

Example. Price 1000 ₽, 25% discount → discounted price 750 ₽
Cost 600 ₽
Marketplace commission 90 ₽ (12%)
Logistics and packaging 60 ₽
Traffic to order (CPO) 50 ₽
─────────────────────────────
Profit from order −50 ₽ ← promotion minus

In this example, a 25% discount takes the order to minus 50 ₽. This is visible only if you count everything, and not “price minus cost”. The majority counts on two lines and rejoices at the margin of 150 ₽, which in reality does not exist. Below is how the picture changes with different depths of discount on the same product.

The numbers here are an example of calculation, and not measurements from a specific client: in your positions, the cost and commission will be different, but the logic is the same. The column on the right is sobering: at a 15% discount, you need to quadruple your sales just to stay on your own. That's why I say - first we count, then we decide the depth. How to calculate the cost of traffic for an order and reduce it to a budget - in the analysis about marketing budget.

6. Specifics of marketplaces

Wildberries and Ozon live by their own rules, and you cannot simply transfer the logic of your site here. Three things that change the calculus.

First, dumping is a natural environment here. The buyer sees a carousel of ten identical products with a price in a column, and the decision is often made based on the bottom number. The platform also encourages participation in its promotions, sometimes reducing the visibility of those who do not fit in. The margin on the marketplace is thinner by default - budget for it.

The second is the redemption percentage. A person orders on Wildberries, tries it on at the pick-up point, and may not buy it. Every non-repayment means round-trip logistics at your expense. On clothes, the redemption rate is 30-40%, and the real economy is calculated not on the order, but on the purchased order. A discount that is “a plus” on an order easily goes into a minus after returns.

Third, commission and storage increases with the season. In November, warehouses are full, storage rates are raised, and commissions by category may change. Calculating the stock margin using last year's rates is a common mistake. Read more about the economics of sites in the article about marketing on Wildberries and Ozon.

7. How not to catch a cash gap

You can run a perfect sale on margin and still end up stuck - if you don't balance the money over time. A sale compresses into a week what would normally be stretched out over months, and a box office gap in December after a successful November is a classic.

The main trap is that money comes in later than it goes out. You pay for the purchase for the promotion in October-November, and the payment from the marketplace comes with a delay of two to four weeks after the sale. Between these points there is a hole that needs to be closed with something. Plus refunds that arrive in December, when you “earned money” according to the papers.

What I do: I do not count the turnover, but the schedule of cash receipts by week. When is the purchase paid for, when will the first payment arrive, when will the second, how much will the refunds consume? I keep a buffer for the purchase of the next batch - because after a successful sale, I need to immediately replenish the stock, but there is no money from sales yet. The turnover in the report is beautiful, but the account may be empty - this is the cash gap.

Conclusion

Sale season is the most expensive traffic and the highest willingness to buy, all rolled into one week. To exchange this for a “discount like everyone else” means working for a year for the sake of a beautiful turnover and an empty account. First, you calculate the margin taking into account commission, logistics and traffic. Then you choose a mechanic: bundle, gift, early access to the database. You touch the discount last and shallowly. You prepare in six weeks, not three days. And you bring the money together over time so that December doesn’t eat up November’s profits.

If you have 11.11 or Black Friday coming up and you have doubts that the promotion will not go negative, write to me at Telegram or fill out form. We’ll analyze your margin by position, select mechanics for your niche, and put together a cache chart so that there is no gap. Starting consultation - 0 ₽.