How Unbound Preps for Black Friday: A Behind-the-Scenes Look

Every year, our team preps for the biggest sales season: Black Friday and Cyber Monday! During this 3-4 week period, Unbound earns ~25% of sales for the whole year. From the outside, peering into the proverbial digital window holiday sales, it seems like a pretty straightforward process. However, from the inside, it's a small team spending the entire summer making sure the inventory, cash, emails, SMS, website design, social media posts, and the customer support all show up at the same time, in November, without falling apart.

We asked five of the people who make that magic happen the same four questions:

What is the most important thing you prepare for to ensure a smooth holiday sales season?
What is one thing you wish customers knew about Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales?
When have things gone wrong and why?
What do you have your eyes on for this holiday season? We're human, too, after all!

If you'd rather explore room by room, we also built a small, extremely un-serious Unbound Mall where you can wander the concourse, step into each person's store, and poke around until someone tells you the truth (or gives you a discount code).

The most important part of prep:
Making sure the sale details are crystal clear in the comms, that the site is easily navigable and that the discounts are easily visible. It's not sexy but that's showbiz baby.

What she wishes customers knew:
That we start prepping for it IN THE SUMMER.

Something that's gone sideways:
I wouldn't say this is something that has gone wrong, but we have definitely learned that the more razzle dazzle we add to comms does NOT equal better sales or better customer engagement. Sometimes a gal just wants a code and to be left alone, and I respect that!

What Kate's buying for herself:
I've wanted a pair of Guidi boots for 10+ years. Every year I think THIS IS IT. But now I have two small babies and parenting law dictates that all cool clothes now go to them now.

The most important part of prep:
That you get the right information! We make dozens and dozens of assets across ads, email, social media, the website, SMS etc. After a while my brain starts to melt and my eyes glaze over and it's my biggest anxiety every year that I wrote the incorrect discount or did the math wrong on a graphic. Which I've done. So it's not unfounded!

What she wishes customers knew:
I read every single comment!!!!! And I share the really mean and weird ones with the team and we all talk about how mean and strange you are!!!!

Something that's gone sideways:
When the Suez Canal was blocked, our product shipments were delayed right before BFCM, and we had to create a complex comms plan explaining world trade patterns and why they affect when you get your vibrator :/ At the time, it seemed so novel (kinda cartoonish that a freight ship awkwardly turned and blocked the whole canal and affected worldwide trade) but I never thought I'd still be talking about global trade and vibrators to this day!

What Maddy's buying for herself:
I'm always looking for deals on furniture or kitchen supplies. I would love a Bosch stand mixer or a new storage cabinet for my little Brooklyn apartment.

The most important part of prep:
The most important part of BFCM that I prep for is making sure the retailers who carry our products have the inventory they need in order to have a successful holiday season.

What she wishes customers knew:
We only have two customer service agents, and they're lovely people — they work over the holidays to make sure that we never leave you waiting. The holiday season is a hectic time for the entire consumer goods industry, and if something has gone wrong with your order or if it's shipping more slowly than usual, it's not because we don't love you! It's because the whole industry is extremely busy: warehouse workers at distribution centers all over the country are working long, hard hours to get your goods on trucks, truckers are working overtime to get orders to the next node on the journey, delivery drivers are making last mile deliveries door-to-door in whatever weather comes their way, and customer service people are handling everything that goes wrong. In short, the one thing I wish customers knew about the Black Friday/Cyber Monday season is the immense quantity of human hands and human minds that are involved in the labor of turning a few clicks on your computer into a package that arrives on your doorstep, and how challenging that labor is during a time of high demand.

Something that's gone sideways:
Last year, the projections across the industry for Black Friday & Cyber Monday were lower than what actually happened, so carriers hired fewer seasonal workers than they usually would have. This meant that shipping times were relatively slow. It wasn't the end of the world, but it did mean a lot of people were upset with us about the transit times. Every brand was seeing the same thing, so it was hard to know there was much we could do.

What Sam's buying for herself:
It's coming up on time to upgrade my personal computer, so... we'll see what the deals look like 😈

The most important part of prep:
As the person who oversees Product at Unbound, one of my most important tasks is to make sure we have enough products to sell during our busiest season. To help determine how much we would order, I pull up all of our current inventory levels, as well as sales projections for future months, compare the numbers, then determine how many products we want to order so we have enough to support sales through BFCM.

What she wishes customers knew:
Inventory for BFCM is usually ordered in August, to ensure there's enough time for production, freight, and receiving at the warehouse well before November.

Something that's gone sideways:
Last year I thought we lost 200 units of Dex in transit, but later on they showed up at our warehouse doorstep the day after New Year's. Now I call that a holiday miracle!

What she's buying for herself:
A phone with longer battery life. I have an iPhone 12 mini from 2021 and it keeps dying on me when I need it the most.

The most important part of prep:
The most important thing for me is making sure our team and customers have what they need. This includes ensuring we have enough cash, during our slowest sales season (the summer), to buy a TON of inventory in August so it arrives by November. It's stressful to manage cash flow (especially with changing tariff policies and increasing fuel prices) but with this team, I know I'm never facing any of that stress alone.

What she wishes customers knew:
The Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale season, known colloquially as BFCM in the biz, accounts for about 25% of our total sales for the year. There are mixed accounts as to the origin of the term 'Black Friday,' but most often, it's called that because it's when companies often go from being in the red (i.e., unprofitable) to 'being in the black' (i.e., breakeven or profitable).

Something that's gone sideways:
From my beloved co-founder, Sarah Jayne, "If you do not include that I sent my Spotify Wrapped link in our final Cyber Monday SMS, it's journalistic malpractice." Which is probably the most hilarious Unbound-oopsie-daisy of all time... wherein we thought we were sending out a SMS to our entire list with sales details and in fact sent out SJ's Spotify Wrapped by mistake.

What she's buying for herself:
I really would like to buy a desk. I work from my kitchen bar top and I'm getting too old. I need back support!!!!!!

That's the whole team: five people, one very stressful and very well-loved six weeks. If you want to poke around yourself, the Unbound Mall is open, no login and no escalator music required.