A Black Friday plan for a small digital-kit store

Pick one offer

You don't have to discount anything for Black Friday. A small catalog can run one offer, such as a bundle or a bonus file, and leave every other price where it is. Black Friday is an option with a date on it. If you choose to take part, one clear offer is easier to explain to buyers and easier for you to run.

• Pick the kit or bundle buyers already ask about.
• Pick an offer you can explain in one sentence.
• Pick a bonus file if you only sell one kit.

One offer. One reason to buy.

Discount, bundle or bonus: choose one

Each one works differently, so compare them plainly. A bundle gives the buyer more for one price. A bonus keeps your regular price and adds an extra file. A discount is the simplest to set up. My view, and it's a judgment call with no data behind it: frequent discounts teach buyers to wait for the next one.

Pick the row that fits your catalog. Then stop comparing.

Set a real start and a real end

Pick a real window and keep it. One example is Friday, Nov 27 through Monday, Nov 30, 2026, which is Cyber Monday. State the end time with a time zone on the sales page and in every email. When the window closes, the price goes back. Don't use countdown timers that reset.

• Write the start date, time and time zone on the sales page.
• Write the end date, time and time zone in every email.
• Put the price back the minute the window closes.

When it ends, it ends.

Show honest prices

Show a "was" price only if it's a price you really offered for a reasonably substantial stretch of time. The FTC's Guides Against Deceptive Pricing (16 CFR 233.1) call an inflated former price "fictitious" and say the bargain it creates is a false one. This isn't legal advice, so check your own situation.

Here's the FTC's test for a former price, quoted from section 233.1(a): "If the former price is the actual, bona fide price at which the article was offered to the public on a regular basis for a reasonably substantial period of time, it provides a legitimate basis for the advertising of a price comparison."

The Guides also give an example with a pen. A seller raises the price for a few days, then "cuts" it back to the usual price and calls that a bargain. The FTC says that "is obviously a false claim."

• Compare only against a price you actually charged for a real stretch of time.
• Leave your October prices alone so you can cut them in November.

These are U.S. guides from the FTC. Outside the U.S., check local rules.

Write three short emails

Three emails cover a four-day window. Each one carries a single link to a single offer, with the end time stated. For the page those emails point to, use How to Write a Sales Page for a Digital Kit.

1. Send the announcement when the offer opens: what it is, the price and the end time.
2. Send a reminder the day before it ends.
3. Send a last call on the final day, with the end time in the subject line.

Test everything before Friday

Check that the checkout link works on phone and desktop and that the bundle or discount shows the right total. Confirm the delivery email arrives with the files, and that the refund terms on the page match the offer. Put tracking (UTMs) on every link. Then have someone else buy through once.

• Test the buy link on a phone and on a desktop.
• Test the total at checkout against the price on the page.
• Test the delivery email and open every file it sends. How to Write the Delivery Email for a Digital Kit covers what goes in it.
• Test that the refund terms match the offer. Bundles often carry different terms than single kits, so say which terms apply.
• Test that every link in every email has UTMs.

This takes an hour. Fixing a broken checkout on Saturday morning takes longer.

After the weekend

• Put every price back on time.
• Look at which link got clicks and which offer sold, using your own numbers.
• Write down one thing to change next year, while you still remember it.

A short note now saves a long guess next November.

Put the guide to work

If you want to package and price a kit properly before you run any offer, the Digital Product Workbench ($39) is "a practical production system for choosing, shaping, packaging, pricing, and launching a useful digital product." It's an individual kit, so it comes with Kit&File's 30-day money-back guarantee.

If you'd like the full set, the Creator Workbench bundle has six kits for $99 ($154 separately). That's its regular price. It's a bundle, so it isn't covered by the 30-day money-back guarantee. Individual kits are.

Sources

• Federal Trade Commission, Guides Against Deceptive Pricing, 16 CFR 233.1, Former price comparisons
• Kit&File refund policy

Less content. More use.