40% off is not a strategy: your Black Friday plan for supplement brands
Key takeaways
- Cyber Monday was the biggest online day of 2025, so keep your sale running through Monday.
- At 40% off, a $40 bottle can leave you $6. Bundles and spend thresholds make orders bigger and protect your margin.
- Email your list before you buy ads, and schedule four emails for Thanksgiving week now.
- Not live yet? Sixteen days is enough to launch with Supliful if you start today.
- A reorder email around December 20 is where a Black Friday customer starts paying off.
In supplements, one good first order can turn into a customer for years. Bottles run out. People come back.
But every November, a lot of brands make the same move. They take 30 or 40% off everything, run ads during the most expensive week of the year, and send the same email as everyone else. Sales look great for four days. Then December is slow, January is slower, and when the numbers come in, many of them made less than in a normal month.
The brands that win this season aren’t the ones with the deepest discount. They’re the ones with a plan. Here’s what last year tells us, and exactly what to do next, whether your store is live or you’re still setting up.
What last year’s Black Friday told us
$44.2B. US shoppers spent $44.2 billion online in the five days from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday 2025. The demand is real. So is the competition for it. Source: Adobe Analytics
US online sales by day, 2025 (Adobe Analytics)
- Thanksgiving: $6.4 billion
- Black Friday: $11.8 billion
- Cyber Monday: $14.25 billion
Three numbers from that week should shape your plan:
- Cyber Monday is the main event. It beat Black Friday by $2.45 billion. If your sale ends Friday night, you’re walking away from the biggest day of the week.
- Shoppers buy on their phones. 57.5% of Cyber Monday online sales came through a mobile device (Adobe). Buy something from your own store on your phone this week.
- Everyone is discounting. The average US discount during Cyber Week was 28% (Salesforce, via Chain Store Age). When everyone cuts prices, a discount alone doesn’t make you stand out. It just makes you cheaper.
The real cost of a deep discount
Say a bottle sells for $40 and costs you $18 to make and ship. At 40% off, you keep $6 per sale. To make the same profit as on a normal day, you’d need to sell almost four times as many.
Here’s what different offers leave you with on that same bottle:
A $40 bottle that costs $18 to make and ship
- 40% off everything: customer pays $24, you keep $6
- 15% off everything: customer pays $34, you keep $16
- Buy 2, save 20%: customer pays $64, you keep $28
- Free gift on orders over $75*: customer pays $80, you keep $36
*Two bottles plus a gift that costs you $8.
Bundles and spend thresholds win because they make each order bigger. Shoppers still feel like they got a deal, and you still make money.
Protect your margin like it’s your paycheck. Because it is.
Not live yet? You can still make it
Sixteen days is enough if you start today. With Supliful, you don’t need inventory, a warehouse, or a minimum order. You pick the products, add your brand, and every order is made and shipped for you.
- Today: pick your first product. Start with one. You can add more later. Not sure where to begin? Start with what people already take: 78% of US adults use supplements, and vitamins and minerals are the most common at 67% (Pew Research Center). If your audience skews young, look at protein: 37% of adults ages 18 to 29 take it. Browse the supplements catalog.
- By November 12: design your label. Your brand name, your colors, your look. A clean label you finish beats a perfect one you don’t. Short on time? Our designers can make it for you.
- By November 13: connect your store. Link the store you’ll sell from, like Shopify, so your products can go live there.
- By November 16: publish and upgrade. Publish your product, then move to Pro. On the Free plan you can build and publish, but orders only ship on Pro, so upgrade before you start sending people to your store.
That leaves a full week before Thanksgiving to set up your offer and tell people you’re open.
If Black Friday feels too close, aim for January instead. It’s when people start shopping for wellness again, and a brand that launches in December is ready for it.
Start with one product today. No inventory, no warehouse, no minimum order. Browse the supplements catalog
Already selling? Your Black Friday playbook
- Pick an offer that makes orders bigger. Use the comparison above. If you sell on Shopify, bundles and spend thresholds can run as automatic discounts, so nobody needs to remember a code.
- Build one gift-ready bundle. Most people shopping that weekend are buying for someone else. Pair two products people already use together, give the bundle its own product page and photos, and name it like a present. “The Wind-Down Set” sells better than “Magnesium + Ashwagandha Bundle.”
- Email your list before you buy ads. Ad prices jump Black Friday week because every brand is bidding on the same shoppers. Your email list costs you nothing per send. Add a popup that says “Get our Black Friday deal 48 hours early.” Everyone who signs up is telling you they plan to buy.
- Get everything live by mid-November. Carriers back up, inboxes fill, and Thanksgiving week is too late to fix product pages. Test your checkout on your phone before then.
- Schedule four emails now, so Thanksgiving week is just hitting send:
Your Black Friday email schedule
- Wed, Nov 25 to early access list: “You’re in. Your Black Friday deal starts now.”
- Fri, Nov 27 to everyone: “Black Friday is live”
- Sun, Nov 29 to everyone: “Ends Monday: [your offer]”
- Mon, Nov 30 to anyone who hasn’t bought: “Last few hours”
- Keep your claims honest. When everyone’s shouting, it’s tempting to shout louder. In supplements, that’s how brands get into trouble, and ad platforms look closely at health claims. Describe what your product supports, never what it treats or cures. “Supports restful sleep” can work if your label backs it. “Cures insomnia” can’t.
The win most brands miss: January
Supplements and coffee run out. A 30-day bottle bought on November 27 runs out around December 27, right when people start making New Year resolutions and shopping for wellness again.
Schedule a reorder email for around December 20 with a small thank-you, like free shipping on the second order. You reach customers exactly when they need more, and that second order is where a Black Friday customer starts paying off.
Black Friday is one weekend. Your brand is the long game.
Start today
Black Friday always comes sooner than it looks once you count the weekends, the holiday, and everything on this list. The brands that start early are the ones refreshing their order notifications on Thanksgiving weekend.
Pick your next step today, whether that’s choosing your first product or setting your offer:
- Browse the Supliful catalog to pick a first product or a bundle partner
- Go to your dashboard to publish, upgrade, or set up your offer
Want more like this? Follow Supliful on LinkedIn and subscribe to Supliful Insights, our newsletter for supplement and wellness brand builders.
Sources
- US online sales, mobile share: Adobe Analytics, Cyber Monday 2025
- Average Cyber Week discount: Salesforce, reported by Chain Store Age
- Supplement use: Pew Research Center, survey of US adults, July 2026
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