What Is BFCM (Black Friday Cyber Monday)? When It Runs

Quick Definition

BFCM (Black Friday Cyber Monday) is the four-day sales weekend from the Friday after US Thanksgiving through the next Monday. It's also called Cyber Weekend. Many online stores run their biggest discounts of the year then, and lots of shoppers wait for it. It started in the US but now runs in many countries.

Which Days Count as BFCM

It runs from Black Friday, the day after US Thanksgiving, to Cyber Monday. Thanksgiving is always the fourth Thursday of November, so the dates shift each year.

In 2026 that's Friday, November 27 to Monday, November 30. In 2025, Cyber Monday landed on December 1.

Lots of stores start early or stretch deals into a full week. Black Friday is one day. BFCM is all four, and many stores treat them as one sale.

Why a Big BFCM Can Earn Less Than It Looks

BFCM brings two kinds of buyers. New ones came only for the deal. Others already wanted your product and waited for a lower price. You pay the discount on both.

Example: A Serum Store

A serum sells for $40 and costs $16 to make and ship, leaving $24 a bottle. A normal week sells 105, or 15 a day.

For BFCM it takes 25% off, so each bottle is $30 with $14 profit.
The four days sell 200 bottles ($6,000 in sales, $2,800 profit). Four normal days would sell 60 ($2,400 in sales, $1,440 profit).
But the week before, only 70 sold. 35 regulars waited for the sale, costing 35 × $24 = $840 in profit.

Add both weeks up. Without the sale, profit is $3,960. With it, $4,480. Sales rose by a third, but profit rose by $520, about 13%.

How deep you cut drives most of this. See our guide to choosing a discount percentage.

BFCM on a Shopify Store

In Shopify admin, schedule a discount's start and end, and it'll switch on and off by itself, even at midnight.

Once it's over, compare results with last year's BFCM, not a normal weekend. Match event days instead of calendar dates, since Thanksgiving moves. Shopify analytics can compare one date range with an earlier one.

Our app, Growth Suite, can run event-based, store-wide campaigns and tiered spend-based discounts. If Shopify's built-in discounts fall short, see our best Shopify discount apps list.

It helps to plan BFCM alongside other sales on a yearly campaign calendar for Shopify. To plan and run the sale itself, see our Black Friday Cyber Monday guide for Shopify.

The "Deep Discount or Nothing" Myth

Many owners think BFCM means a big cut on everything, or sitting it out. It doesn't have to. Some stores offer a free gift with an order, or bigger savings on bigger carts. Others skip it on purpose. And cutting deep every year can teach regulars to wait, like the 35 above.