Template & Guide · Sale Scheduler
Shopify Sale Planning Template
Running a sale on Shopify without a plan means last-minute decisions, manual price edits, and a high chance that something reverts late — or doesn't revert at all. This template documents every decision about a sale before it runs, so setup is fast and execution is clean.
The sale brief
Before touching any prices or scheduling anything, answer these questions for every sale you run:
| Field | Example |
|---|---|
| Sale name | Mid-season clearance |
| Start date and time | Friday 14 March, 12:00am (midnight) |
| End date and time | Sunday 16 March, 11:59pm |
| Products / collections in scope | Clearance collection, Knitwear collection |
| Discount percentage | 25% off all items in scope |
| Exceptions (items to exclude) | New arrivals tagged "SS26", bundles |
| Compare-at price | Yes — show original price struck through |
| Minimum margin at sale price | Checked — no product below 35% GM |
| Email campaign linked | Scheduled Friday 6am, reminder Saturday 9am |
| Who is responsible for setup | [Name] |
| Test completed | Yes — [date/time] |
The pre-sale checklist
Run through this before every sale:
- Sale event created in Sale Scheduler with correct start and end times (double-check timezone)
- Collections or product list confirmed — no items missing, no wrong items included
- Discount percentage verified against margin floor for worst-case products
- Compare-at price behaviour confirmed (will it show the "was" price?)
- Email campaign written, approved, and scheduled
- Test sale run on 3–5 products — confirmed start, confirmed revert
- Exceptions tagged or removed from the targeted collection
- Support team briefed on sale scope (for customer queries)
During the sale
- Do not manually edit prices on products in the scheduled sale — this can break the revert
- Monitor for customer complaints about prices not displaying correctly
- Check the sale is live within 15 minutes of the scheduled start
Post-sale review
- Confirm all prices have reverted within 30 minutes of the scheduled end
- Spot-check compare-at prices — they should be cleared after the sale
- Pull revenue and units sold for the sale period
- Note anything that went wrong for next time
Keeping a sale history
Log every completed sale in a simple running record: sale name, dates, collections, discount %, total revenue, and any issues. After a year you'll have a clear picture of which promotions drive the most revenue and when your customers respond. That data shapes the next promotional calendar.
A sale that isn't documented is a sale you can't learn from. The planning template takes ten minutes to fill in and saves every team member from reinventing the same decisions under pressure.