Short answer: Black Friday is Friday, November 27, 2026, and Cyber Monday is November 30. TikTok Shop’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaign runs November 11–30. Last year most large categories sold below a normal month in November and above it in December, so list products by October 28, bank content before November 11 and lead with the price.
When is Black Friday 2026 on TikTok Shop?
Thanksgiving falls on Thursday, November 26, 2026, according to the US Office of Personnel Management’s federal holiday calendar. That puts Black Friday on November 27 and Cyber Monday on November 30.
TikTok Shop runs a longer event of its own. TikTok’s newsroom post What’s shaping the holiday season on TikTok Shop (October 14, 2026) gives the campaign as November 11 to November 30. TikTok’s 2026 Black Friday & Cyber Monday seller campaign guide (published October 19, 2026) gives the same window in Pacific Time, plus the fulfillment and returns rules below.
| Date (2026) | What happens | Source |
|---|---|---|
| By October 28 | Latest date to create campaign listings if you follow TikTok’s advice to list at least two weeks before the campaign starts | TikTok seller guide |
| November 11 | TikTok Shop Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaign opens (PT) | TikTok newsroom; seller guide |
| November 11–24 | Orders get one extra business day on dispatch, auto-cancellation and deliver-by deadlines (local shipping) | TikTok seller guide |
| November 25–December 1 | Two extra business days on the same deadlines | TikTok seller guide |
| November 26 | Thanksgiving | OPM |
| November 27 | Black Friday | Calendar |
| November 30 | Cyber Monday; the campaign ends (PT) | TikTok newsroom; seller guide |
| December 2–5 | One extra business day on fulfillment deadlines | TikTok seller guide |
| November 11 to December 31 | Items sold in this period can be returned until February 10, 2027 | TikTok seller guide |
To take part, the seller guide asks for a Shop Performance Score of 3.5 or higher and a late dispatch rate of 20% or lower over the last 30 days. It recommends creating listings at least two weeks before the campaign starts and says most applications are reviewed within 5–14 business days, so listing earlier than October 28 is safer.
TikTok also published last year’s headline: TikTok Shop’s sales passed $500 million over the four-day Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend in 2025, and sellers hosting livestreams saw 84% year-over-year sales growth across more than 760,000 sessions and 1.6 billion views. Those are TikTok’s figures. The rest of this page uses MediaLabs Research estimates, which show how each category moved against its own normal month.
Which categories sold above a normal month last November?
MediaLabs Research, in collaboration with Coherence Limited, indexes each category’s monthly revenue against its own average month over the last 12 months, so 100 is a normal month and 110 is 10% above it. Table 2 shows November and December 2025 for the 14 largest US TikTok Shop categories.
| Category | November 2025 | December 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Beauty & Personal Care | 89 | 107 |
| Womenswear & Underwear | 101 | 111 |
| Sports & Outdoor | 110 | 101 |
| Health | 91 | 105 |
| Fashion Accessories | 95 | 107 |
| Phones & Electronics | 91 | 105 |
| Home Supplies | 91 | 109 |
| Menswear & Underwear | 106 | 109 |
| Household Appliances | 95 | 100 |
| Furniture | 97 | 101 |
| Shoes | 97 | 112 |
| Collectibles | 79 | 98 |
| Automotive & Motorcycle | 97 | 107 |
| Toys & Hobbies | 76 | 98 |
Source: MediaLabs Research seasonality data, 12 months to October 21, 2026. Categories are listed by 12-month revenue. The average month includes October 2026 to date, so values a few points either side of 100 are effectively normal.
Only three of the 14 sold above a normal month in November 2025: Sports & Outdoor (110), Menswear & Underwear (106) and Womenswear & Underwear (101). Beauty & Personal Care, the largest category, ran at 89. December was different: 11 of the 14 were above 100, led by Shoes (112) and Womenswear & Underwear (111). Household Appliances sat at exactly 100, and Collectibles and Toys & Hobbies at 98.
Neither month was the year’s peak. In all 14 categories, June and August 2026 indexed higher than November or December 2025. Part of that is trend: a 12-month average does not remove growth or decline over the year, so read these as a record of what happened, not a law.
The wider list, including smaller categories
Our paper TikTok Shop Black Friday planning: category seasonality (window September 19 to October 18, 2026, revenue data as of October 12) combines November and December into one figure and covers all 29 categories. Table 3 lists the categories furthest from normal.
| Category | November–December 2025 |
|---|---|
| Pre-Owned | 1.23× |
| Menswear & Underwear | 1.11× |
| Kids’ Fashion | 1.10× |
| Textiles & Soft Furnishings | 1.08× |
| Sports & Outdoor | 1.07× |
| Womenswear & Underwear | 1.06× |
| Luggage & Bags | 1.06× |
| Baby & Maternity | 1.05× |
| Furniture | 1.05× |
| Fashion Accessories | 1.04× |
| Household Appliances | 0.93× |
| Toys & Hobbies | 0.81× |
Source: MediaLabs Research, TikTok Shop Black Friday planning paper. Every category not listed fell between 0.93× and 1.04×.
Across all categories, the same paper puts November 2025 at 0.93× a normal month and December 2025 at 1.10×, so treating November and December as one block hides the shift. For categories that sold below normal, such as Toys & Hobbies and Household Appliances, the paper suggests a different reason to promote, such as clearance or gifting.
Our first look at the season, Which TikTok Shop categories sold above a normal month around the coming US retail moments (data to October 1), also covers the New Year window. It ran on an earlier cut of the data, and some values changed with newer data: it put Womenswear & Underwear at 0.90× for November–December, against 1.06× in the later paper. With one year of history and no uncertainty ranges, differences of a few points between neighbouring categories are not a ranking.
What does the forecast say for the next eight weeks?
The same data produces an eight-week forecast of weekly GMV for each category, with an 80% band: the range the model expects weekly GMV to fall in four times out of five. Table 4 summarizes it for the six largest categories. It forecasts estimated GMV for the whole category, not the result of any single brand.
| Category | Expected weekly GMV, lowest to highest week | 80% band, week 42 | 80% band, week 49 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beauty & Personal Care | $69.3M–$74.0M | $50.3M–$92.2M | $13.8M–$132.4M |
| Womenswear & Underwear | $49.8M–$64.3M | $39.2M–$74.1M | $0.5M–$99.2M |
| Sports & Outdoor | $26.1M–$36.9M | $22.1M–$47.3M | $0.0M–$61.7M |
| Health | $21.4M–$24.8M | $20.5M–$29.2M | $11.0M–$35.6M |
| Fashion Accessories | $21.3M–$24.7M | $20.4M–$28.9M | $9.9M–$33.8M |
| Phones & Electronics | $19.2M–$21.3M | $8.8M–$30.2M | $0.0M–$50.7M |
Source: MediaLabs Research seasonality forecast as of October 21, 2026, rounded to $0.1M. Weeks are numbered as the model numbers them; week 42 falls in mid-October and week 49 in early December.
Two things stand out. First, the expected paths move within narrow ranges. Beauty & Personal Care stays between $69.3M and $74.0M a week, with its highest expected week at week 48, while Womenswear & Underwear and Sports & Outdoor drift down into December. Second, the bands widen fast. By week 49 the lower end of the band reaches $0 for Sports & Outdoor and Phones & Electronics, so the model cannot tell a weak season from a strong one that far out.
Use the forecast as a planning range rather than a target. Inventory and budget plans should still work near the low end of the band, with a rule for scaling up if the first campaign week lands near the top.
A week-by-week plan from now to Cyber Monday
Counting back from Black Friday on November 27. The dates and rules come from TikTok’s seller guide; the sequencing is how we would run it.
| When | Weeks before Black Friday | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Now to October 28 | 5–4 | Create or update every campaign listing. Check your Shop Performance Score (3.5 or higher) and late dispatch rate (20% or lower over 30 days). |
| October 21 to November 4 | 5–3 | Ship samples to creators. Brief the offer, the dates and a price-led opening, and agree what creators may say about the discount. |
| November 2–10 | 3–2 | Bank content before the campaign opens. Set the GMV Max budget and Target ROI at campaign prices, and run small tests on the videos you plan to scale, with a spend cap and stop rule. |
| November 11–24 | 2–0 | Campaign live. Scale the videos that sell per view, not the ones with the most views. Publish the LIVE schedule. |
| November 25 to December 1 | Black Friday week | Run LIVE sessions around Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Fulfillment deadlines are two business days longer; the campaign ends November 30. |
| December 2–24 | 1–4 after | Move creators to gifting content, and test a gift-framed video against a plain one. |
| To February 10, 2027 | After | Items sold November 11 to December 31 can still be returned. Hold back margin for refunds before you judge the season. |
Samples and creators
Creators need the product in hand before they can film, and the best-selling openings depend on a clear offer, so lock the discount before samples ship. Five weeks is enough for creators who are already briefed and sampled; it is tight for a program that still has to recruit them. Plan the post-Cyber Monday wave now as well: December ran above a normal month in 11 of the 14 largest categories last year.
GMV Max budget
Set the budget and Target ROI from the margin you will actually earn at the campaign price. A deeper discount lowers contribution per order, which raises the return you need to break even. Our GMV Max guide covers the break-even math and why reported ROI includes attributed organic and affiliate orders.
LIVE schedule
LIVE matters more in some categories than others. In the week to October 19, 2026, LIVE carried 24.1% of Health revenue and 20.8% of Household Appliances revenue in our data, against 4.7% in Menswear & Underwear. TikTok says its US LIVE Shopping sales more than doubled year over year in the first half of 2026. If LIVE already carries a large share of your category, schedule sessions for Black Friday and Cyber Monday in advance and line up creators to host them.
What creative to brief for Black Friday
Black Friday content is mostly about the offer, and the data supports leading with it. Table 6 compares sales per view, the revenue a group of videos earns per view against the market average, across creative choices in top-selling TikTok Shop videos.
| Creative choice | Sales per view | 90% range | Source and window |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price or deal opening | 1.53× | 1.37–1.71 | Openings that sell, Sept 2–Oct 1 |
| Bold-claim opening | 1.28× | 1.20–1.37 | Openings that sell, Sept 2–Oct 1 |
| Straight into the demo | 0.89× | 0.80–0.98 | Openings that sell, Sept 2–Oct 1 |
| Urgency or scarcity angle | 1.35× | 1.22–1.50 | Holiday content, Sept 19–Oct 18 |
| Value or deal angle | 1.26× | 1.21–1.32 | Holiday content, Sept 19–Oct 18 |
| Gifting angle | 0.86× | 0.80–0.93 | Holiday content, Sept 19–Oct 18 |
| Unboxing format | 1.20× | 1.10–1.32 | Holiday content, Sept 19–Oct 18 |
| Review or testimonial format | 1.17× | 1.12–1.22 | Holiday content, Sept 19–Oct 18 |
| Demo or tutorial format (36% of sales) | 0.96× | 0.94–0.99 | Holiday content, Sept 19–Oct 18 |
| Orange cart call to action | 1.08× | 1.04–1.12 | Calls to action that sell, Sept 2–Oct 1 |
| No call to action | 0.90× | 0.85–0.94 | Calls to action that sell, Sept 2–Oct 1 |
Windows are in 2026. Sales per view is shrunk toward the average for small groups. Each paper analyses thousands of top-selling US videos, so the comparisons are among strong sellers, not all videos.
What that means for a Black Friday brief:
- Put the price or the deal in the first seconds. Price-or-deal openings sold at 1.53× the market’s sales per view, the highest of the common hook types. The pattern held in an earlier window too: What sells on TikTok Shop found urgency or scarcity angles at 1.6× (range 1.4–1.9, 83 videos) from September 2 to October 1.
- Use urgency only where it is real. The campaign’s November 30 end date is a real deadline. Invented scarcity is not, and the holiday-content paper advises against it.
- Do not default to gifting language. Gifting-angle videos sold at 0.86× in the weeks before the season. Test a gift-framed version against a plain demo or unboxing with the same creator and the same offer, and compare sales per view.
- Show the orange cart. Videos using the orange cart prompt sold at 1.08× and carried 58% of watched-video sales; videos with no call to action sold at 0.90×.
- Keep demos, but not only demos. Demo or tutorial videos carried 36% of sales at 0.96× per view, while unboxing and review formats sold above average.
How MediaLabs runs Black Friday for brands
Full disclosure: MediaLabs is a TikTok Shop agency and an official TikTok Partnered Agency (TSP), Creator Agency Partner (CAP) and TikTok Shop Affiliate Partner (TAP). For Black Friday we run sampling and creator briefs from a managed roster of 3,000+ vetted creators, plus GMV Max and LIVE, under one team; creator content typically goes live within 7 to 14 days of kickoff. Brands that want shop operations, ads and creators handled together use our full-service TikTok Shop agency program.
About the data
Category figures come from MediaLabs Research, in collaboration with Coherence Limited. Tables 2 and 4 use the seasonality data and forecast as of October 21, 2026 (12 months of category revenue to that date). Table 3 uses the Black Friday planning paper (September 19 to October 18, 2026, revenue as of October 12). Table 6 uses the creative papers and windows named in the table. LIVE shares are for the seven days to October 19, 2026. Product-level figures come from tracked best-sellers, about 100 per category, and all revenue figures are estimates: they are observational, show associations rather than causes, and are not TikTok’s official figures. One year of history cannot separate season from one-off events.
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