Black Friday Setup: One Bad File, Thousands of Refunds
- Jon Allen
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
From the outside, Black Friday is all about doorbusters. From your side of the table, it’s about something way less glamorous: data integrity.
Price files. Terms. Promo setup. If those are wrong, it doesn’t matter how strong your offer is—the math will come for you.
In 2023, global online Cyber Week sales hit $298 billion, up 6% year over year, with U.S. online sales up 5%.
Black Friday remained the largest U.S. online shopping day, generating over $16 billion in online sales.
Mobile has pushed those stakes even higher. One recent analysis found that mobile devices now account for roughly half or more of Black Friday online sales and traffic for many major retailers.
When a promo misprices, that mistake spreads instantly—straight into shoppers’ hands.
Your Black Friday “pre-flight checklist”
Here’s how to think about Black Friday setup like a pre-flight safety check.
Price-file sync across systems
Confirm your base cost and promotional scan rates match what’s in:
Your internal system
Retailer vendor portals
Any third-party promo tools
Verify effective dates and time zones (yes, that has bitten good people).
Final confirmation of promotions, discounts, and terms
Get written confirmation of:
Discount amount (e.g., 2 for $10, 25% off)
Eligible SKUs and pack sizes
Any buy X, get Y mechanics
Make sure trade fund accruals align with what’s actually going to happen in-store and online.
Match ads, product pages, and shelf tags
Align:
Printed circulars
Digital ads and email
Product detail pages (PDPs)
Shelf tags and endcap signage
A shopper seeing “2 for $10” in an ad, “$5.99 each” on shelf, and “$5.29” online is a recipe for complaints, refunds, and invoice claims.
How one mismatch spirals into deductions and angry shoppers
A simple error in one file can cascade into:
Price variance deductions
The retailer honors the lower promo price to keep shoppers happy.
The difference comes back to you as a deduction on millions of units.
Invoice claims and research tickets
Accounts payable (AP) teams see mismatched math and hold payment.
Your team scrambles through emails, screenshots, and spreadsheets to prove what was agreed.
Customer service escalations
Shoppers complain on social media: “Shelf says $9.99, I was charged $12.99.”
Retailers remember which brands cause friction when the store is already under Black Friday stress.
All of this is avoidable. But only if you tighten the setup before the frenzy.
How to collect and keep promo proofs
One of the best defenses you have against post-event deductions is documentation.
Build a promo proof folder with:
Screenshots/PDFs of retailer ads and digital circulars
Photos of in-store signage and endcaps (if you can get them)
Screenshots of PDPs and banners
Email confirmations of scan rates and event dates
Organize by retailer → event → date. That way, when a March invoice shows up claiming your Black Friday promo wasn’t authorized, you’re not hunting through an old inbox.
Fictional example (for illustration only)
Fictional example (not a real brand): A frozen entrée supplier negotiates a Black Friday promo: “2 for $10” on their top two SKUs. Everyone’s excited; the offer is featured in the retailer’s print ad and home page carousel. But one thing doesn’t happen: the retailer’s system never updates the unit price from $5.99 to $5.00. The ad says 2 for $10. Shelf tags say 2 for $10. Registers ring up $5.99 each. On Black Friday morning, customer service lines light up. Stores manually override to honor the ad. Corporate processes a fix—but thousands of transactions have already gone through at the wrong price. The retailer reconciles the difference and sends the brand a seven-figure price variance deduction.
Shoppers are mostly satisfied. The supplier’s margin… not so much.
Again, completely fictional—but very believable if you’ve lived through a messy event.
Simple moves that make Black Friday less scary
A few practical steps suppliers can take:
Run a “live fire drill” on a smaller event in October
Use an off-peak promo to test your price-file workflow.
Fix the kinks before Black Friday.
Assign one person as Black Friday “data captain”
Not to own everything, but to ensure nothing falls through the cracks.
Their job: sanity-check cost files, promo setup, and proofs.
Agree on a same-day issue process with your buyer
If something goes wrong, who do you call?
Can you agree on a playbook that minimizes shopper pain and deduction damage?
At Woodridge Retail Group, we often help brands do a quiet pre-mortem: “If this promo goes sideways, where would it break?” It’s not glamorous work—but it’s the difference between a clean sales win and a year’s worth of invoice noise.
