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Black Friday Profit Planning Workbook for EU
A product-by-product method for discounting in Europe, so a sitewide banner never takes your bestsellers to cost. Five decisions, four worksheets, and the maths that shows where a flat discount quietly gives margin away.
Built for DTC brands selling into Germany and the EU, on their own store and on marketplaces.
Tick both boxes to continue. Checkout via Lemon Squeezy.
- Hold, Promote and Clear tiering per SKU
- Margin floor that survives marketplace commission
- Phasing that respects the EU 30 day rule
- Campaign P&L you sign before launch
A sitewide discount treats every product as if it earns the same margin
No catalogue works like that. The same cut a high-margin product absorbs comfortably takes a thin-margin product to zero, and the bestsellers in the middle would have sold anyway.
| Product | Price | COGS | Margin before | Discount | New price | Margin after |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A: high-margin hero | €100 | €27 | 73% | 35% | €65 | 59% |
| B: mid-margin mover | €100 | €45 | 55% | 35% | €65 | 31% |
| C: thin-margin line | €100 | €65 | 35% | 35% | €65 | 0% |
Illustrative example, own store, before fees and shipping.
The depth a product can afford is set by its own margin and stock position, never by the campaign headline. One banner, many depths.
There is a second leak that catches brands selling on Amazon, Zalando or OTTO. Commission is charged on the discounted price, not the original, so you give the reduction to the customer and then pay the fee on what is left. At a 15 percent commission, the same 35 percent discount that leaves 59 percent margin on your own store leaves 51 percent on a marketplace. Marketplace offers should generally run tighter than store offers, not match them.
The five decisions every peak promotion has to get right
They have to be right at the same time. The workbook walks them in order, and every section ends in something you can fill in with your own numbers.
Which products to discount
Not all of them. Hold, Promote and Clear tiering from three data points per SKU: sales velocity, weeks of stock cover, and contribution margin.
How deep, per product
Set the margin floor once, then work backwards to a maximum discount per SKU. The formula is in the book and the columns are in the worksheet.
In which phase
Teaser, main event, peak, last chance. In Europe phasing has a legal dimension most playbooks miss entirely.
Timed to the right moment
Against the 2026 calendar, carrier cut-offs and marketplace deal deadlines, with a revert time agreed per channel before anything launches.
Without surrendering margin
Different depths per channel, because your own store and your marketplaces are not the same shop wearing different logos.
And the listing problem
Deciding depths for 300 SKUs is an afternoon. Getting 300 correct prices live on three channels at midnight, and back off four days later, is where plans actually break.
Your floor, converted into a maximum discount
The margin floor is one sentence agreed before planning starts: nothing sells below X percent contribution margin, on any channel, after fees. You choose X. The workbook converts it into the number that actually goes in the plan.
| Channel | Commission | Maximum discount at floor | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| Own store | 0% | 47% | Deep headline room. This is where the loud offer lives. |
| Marketplace | 15% | 37% | Same product, same floor, ten points less room. |
Illustrative. Price €100, all-in unit cost €32, floor 40 percent of net revenue. All-in means COGS plus pick-pack, packaging, payment fees and expected shipping subsidy. A floor built on bare COGS is not a floor.
Any price you cut after 28 October 2026 becomes part of the 30 day reference window for Black Friday. Phase the communication early. Phase the price cuts late.
That date is not a preference. Under Article 6a of the Price Indication Directive, in Germany Section 11 PAngV, an advertised reduction has to be calculated from the lowest price you charged in the previous 30 days, a position the Court of Justice tightened in September 2024 in the Aldi Sued case. Black Friday 2026 falls on 27 November, so your reference prices are effectively locked from 28 October. In a coordinated sweep of 314 traders across 25 European countries published by the European Commission in March 2026, 30 percent were displaying price reductions incorrectly.
Four worksheets that assemble the plan onto two pages
A · SKU tiering
SKU, velocity per week, weeks cover, margin percent, tier, planned depth.
B · Phasing plan
Phase, offer and scope, channels, start, end, revert time, owner.
C · Margin floor calculator
Price, all-in unit cost, commission, floor, maximum discount, planned discount, event price, 30 day reference price, advertised claim, revert price.
D · Campaign P&L
Revenue, units, blended depth, overstock cleared, new customers, contribution margin, and margin protected against a flat sitewide discount.
Build them in your own spreadsheet. The workbook gives you the columns and the logic, not a locked template you have to work around.
Who this is for, and who it is not for
Buy it if
You are a founder or ecommerce lead on Shopify selling into Germany or the EU, with or without Amazon, Zalando and OTTO alongside. You have a catalogue rather than a handful of SKUs, you know your cost prices, and someone is going to ask you in December what the event actually earned.
Skip it if
You sell a single product, you do not discount, or you have not yet checked whether you are ready to trade at all. In that last case start with the free checklist below. It costs nothing and it is the more urgent of the two.
The free checklist tells you whether you are ready to trade. This workbook decides what you trade. They are built to be run together.
Before you buy
What exactly do I get?
A 9-page PDF, A4, 2026 Europe edition. Five decision sections with worked examples, and four worksheet column specifications you build in your own spreadsheet. Instant download after checkout, and the link stays live so you can come back to it.
Is this the same as the free checklist?
No, and they do different jobs. The free 96-point checklist is a readiness audit: store speed, payments, legal pre-flight, logistics and the war room. This workbook is the campaign plan: which products to discount, how deep, in which phase, on which channel. Most brands need both, and the checklist is the one to run first.
Is it specific to Germany?
It is built for selling into Germany and the wider EU, so the compliance and channel logic assumes European rules and European marketplaces. The tiering and margin maths work anywhere. The 30 day reference price rule, the phasing consequences and the marketplace commission logic are the parts you would not find in a US playbook.
Do I need my cost prices?
Yes, and that is the point. Every method that tells you what a discount actually costs needs unit cost. If you would rather work from a margin percentage per product than a cost figure, that works too.
Is this legal advice?
No. The compliance notes are operational guidance written by practitioners, and they are the parts of the law that change how you plan a promotion. Have your own counsel confirm your final setup. Every worked example in the workbook is an illustrative model on sample data, not a client result or a guarantee.
Can you just run this for us?
Yes. We prepare and manage peak season for DTC brands selling into Germany and the EU, from the October reference price freeze through to the January returns wave, with in-house counsel registered in Germany and New York inside every engagement.
Plan the offer, or have it planned with you
Nazim Ekerbicer has planned a Black Friday campaign every year since 2015, and in the German market since 2020, from the platform side as a marketplace manager and from the brand side as an ecommerce manager at a DTC fashion brand. This workbook is what that looks like written down.
Have the peak run for you
Readiness sprint, promotion and margin plan, or full trading management.
See how we work