Questions to ask after Black Friday: a WooCommerce sales review

After Black Friday, compare the event's net sales and orders with the same days last year, then ask which products sold, how much your discounts cost, which channels and campaigns brought orders, how refunds develop over the following weeks, what you now need to reorder, and whether the sale pulled sales forward from the weeks around it.

Below are twelve questions in the order worth asking them. Each says where the answer lives in WooCommerce and whether Askshelf can answer it today. It answers all twelve at least in part; three (stock-outs, refunds and profit) stop short of the full answer, and the notes say where. Examples use $.

Before you start: set the dates right

Black Friday moves each year, so comparing calendar dates doesn't line up. Decide your event window (for example Friday to Cyber Monday, four days) and set it by hand for both years in the date picker. The guide on comparing WooCommerce sales year over year covers the date picker in detail.

Also pick a "before" and "after" window, such as the two weeks before the event and the two weeks after. You'll need them for question 11.

The twelve questions at a glance

Sales: questions 1 and 2

1. How did net sales and orders compare with last year's event? Use net sales so free-shipping offers and tax don't distort the picture. Look at orders separately: more orders at lower value and fewer orders at higher value are very different results.

2. Did average order value go up or down? Deep discounts often lower it. Bundles and free-shipping thresholds raise it. If AOV fell but orders rose a lot, the discount may still have been worth it; question 10 settles that.

Products and stock: questions 3 and 4

3. Which products sold most? Rank by units for restocking, by net sales for what earned. Compare with last year's event list: a product that led both years is a dependable sale lead for next year.

4. Which products sold out, or are about to? Products that sold out early cost you sales you can't see in any report. Check Analytics › Stock filtered to Out of stock. Then look ahead: the weeks after Black Friday lead into holiday shopping, so ask what will run out at the post-sale rate. Askshelf can forecast products about to run out from recent sales; it can't tell you how many sales you lost while something was out of stock. The guide on what running out of stock costs explains how to estimate that.

Discounts and marketing: questions 5 to 8

5. How much did coupons cost, and what did they bring? Analytics › Coupons shows orders and amount discounted per code. The useful view adds the net sales of those orders, so you can see what each code brought in against what it gave away. See how to tell if a WooCommerce coupon paid off.

6. Which channels brought orders? Group orders by order attribution source type: organic, direct, referral, UTM-tagged. WooCommerce records this per order but Analytics has no channel report, so without a tool you'd read the Origin column order by order.

7. Which emails and ads worked? If you tagged links with UTM campaigns, group by campaign. Untagged emails and ads show up as direct or referral, which is the most common reason Black Friday campaigns can't be measured. Tag every link next year. The guide on measuring a sale or campaign goes further.

8. Did more orders come from mobile? Attribution records device type. If mobile's share rose, check your mobile checkout before the next sale.

Refunds and profit: questions 9 and 10

9. How much has been refunded since? Refunds appear in Analytics › Revenue as Returns, dated when the refund was made. So many Black Friday refunds land in December and lower December's net sales, not November's. Track the refund amount for the weeks after the event. Askshelf gives the amount; for reasons, open the orders and read the reason entered with each refund.

10. Did we make money? Revenue rose; did profit? That needs product costs, the discount given, shipping you paid for and ad spend. Askshelf can show gross profit and margin for the event window, compared with last year's, if Cost of Goods Sold was on and your products had costs. It doesn't know shipping costs, payment fees or ad spend, so subtract those yourself. The WooCommerce profit reporting guide explains what you need, and how discounts eat into margins shows the arithmetic.

The bigger picture: questions 11 and 12

11. Did the sale pull sales forward? Compare net sales for the two weeks before and after the event with the same windows last year. If the weeks around the sale fell sharply, part of the event's sales were orders you'd have had anyway at full price.

12. How many new customers did we get? A sale that brings new buyers can pay off later. Analytics › Orders has a customer type column (new or returning) for this. Askshelf counts it for you: customers who ordered in the window, split into new and returning, with each group's net sales (counts only, no names). In a few months, run the same question for a later period to see how many of the new buyers came back.

Write it down for next year

The most valuable output of the review is a short note you'll read next October:

• what sold out, and when;
• which coupon and which channel did best;
• what you'd change about dates, discounts and stock;
• your event window and its numbers, so next year's comparison takes minutes.

For a regular rhythm the rest of the year, see questions to ask your store every Monday, and for the full picture of AI in your reporting, using AI to analyze your WooCommerce store. The order attribution use case shows what Askshelf answers about channels.