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Preparing your store for White Friday in Saudi Arabia takes four to five weeks and runs across four tracks: technical (speed, hosting, load testing and payments), marketing (audience, ads and lists), inventory and shipping, and the regulatory side, the most important part of which is obtaining the discount license from the Ministry of Commerce before announcing any discount. White Friday 2026 falls on Friday 27 November, and most stores start their offers a few days before it. This article is published about 7 weeks ahead of the date, which is enough time to complete the whole list calmly and without improvising. You will find a 30-item list split across the four tracks, a weekly timeline and approximate costs in SAR, written for a Saudi store owner in Riyadh, Jeddah or Dammam, not translated from the American Black Friday.
White Friday is the local version of Black Friday, which is why Black Friday campaigns in Saudi Arabia appear under both names. It falls on the last Friday of November. In 2026 it falls on Friday 27 November. In practice, the season is no longer a single day: many stores and platforms in Saudi Arabia open their offers a week or more before it and extend them to the end of the month. So plan on peak demand running roughly from 20 to 30 November, with the highest pressure on Thursday and Friday.
A simple calculation: from this article's publication date (4 October) to 20 November you have about 47 days, or nearly 7 weeks. That is comfortable for every item below, provided you do not postpone the items that depend on outside parties: the shipping company, the hosting provider, the payment gateway and the Ministry of Commerce discounts system. These are the parties that fall behind in November, not your team.
And why is this guide being published right now? Because the seasonal offers page you want in Google results needs weeks to get indexed and settle. Whoever publishes their page on 20 November starts the season with almost no organic visibility, and relies entirely on paid ads in the most expensive week of the year.
The technical problem in the season is not only that the store "goes down", but that it slows down under pressure enough for the customer to abandon the cart. These items are ranked by priority:
You are exempt from server load testing; that is the platform's business, and it is usually not allowed on its infrastructure. But your store's speed is still your responsibility: image sizes, the number of installed apps and the weight of the theme. The test that matters to you is testing the full purchase flow with real orders.
A store that starts advertising on Friday buys visitors at the highest price of the year. A store that gathers its audience three weeks ahead sells to people who are already waiting for it.
A straight discount is not the only offer, and it is usually not the most profitable. Here are ideas that attract customers without eating into your margin:
And any offer that reduces the price is still subject to the discount license explained below.
White Friday season is coming: is your store ready for the pressure?
Send us your store link, and we will review your mobile speed, checkout flow and season ad plan before the pressure starts.
The worst thing that can happen in the season is not too few orders, but orders that were sold and cannot be delivered on time. And a customer whose order is late on White Friday writes their review the same day.
This is the track most new stores overlook, and it is the only one that can cost you a fine rather than just lost sales. Discounting in Saudi Arabia is a regulated activity that requires a license from the Ministry of Commerce, issued electronically through the Ministry of Commerce discounts system, and it covers both shops and online stores.
| Item | What we know (as of 2026) | Practical note |
|---|---|---|
| Authority and where to apply | Ministry of Commerce, through the online discounts system | Log in with the business account as the system requires, then pay and print |
| Fees | SAR 300 per shop (government fee) | If you have more than one branch or store, check how it is calculated in the system |
| Main condition | A Commercial Registration, agency or trademark registered with the Ministry | Make sure the registration is valid and that e-commerce activity is added to it |
| Documents | List of products and their prices before and after the discount | Prepare it in a single Excel file straight from your system |
| Partial discount | No less than 50% of the products on offer | If your offer covers only a few products, ask about "promotional offers" instead of a discount |
| Duration and allowance | Commonly stated: 3 licenses and 90 days a year, with a limit of 45 days for full and partial discounts | Check your balance in the system; exceptional seasons may not be deducted from it |
| Issuance | Instant after payment | Do not leave it to the night of the offer; obtain it before the pre-announcement |
| Penalty for violations | The E-Commerce Law allows a warning, a fine of up to SAR one million, and suspension of the business or blocking of the store | In addition to penalties under the discounts and anti-commercial fraud regulations |
Note: the requirements are updated from time to time. Always rely on what appears in the discounts system at the time of applying; the above is a summary of what is published and commonly stated as of October 2026.
This is the part that brings the thirty items together in one plan. We split the weeks so that items depending on outside parties start first, and added a preparation phase for those starting in October:
| Week | Technical | Digital | Inventory and shipping | Regulatory |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Preparation (4 – 25 October) | Audit plugins and apps, and request hosting upgrade quotes in writing | Publish the seasonal landing page early so it gets indexed, and start collecting the interest list | Contact suppliers of products with long lead times | Make sure e-commerce activity is added to the Commercial Registration |
| Week one (26 October – 1 November) | Measure speed, and approve the hosting upgrade | Calculate margins and choose products, and update the landing page with the sign-up form | Forecast quantities and order stock | Review the Commercial Registration and your balance of discount days |
| Week two (2 – 8 November) | Fix images and plugins, and set up caching | Design creative content, and set up retargeting audiences | Agree with the main and backup shipping companies | Prepare the price list before and after the discount |
| Week three (9 – 15 November) | Load test, and test payments with real orders | Launch search campaigns with a warm-up budget, and pre-announce to your list | Prepare packaging and temporary staff | Obtain the discount license before the pre-announcement |
| Week four (16 – 22 November) | Freeze changes, take a backup and turn on monitoring | Offer launch messages, and raise the budget gradually | Sync inventory and prepare customer service replies | Display the license and the two-price labels in the store |
| Peak week (23 – 30 November) | Monitor speed and payments every hour on peak days | Send a reminder before the end, and stop losing ads daily | Track the daily pickup cut-off and delays | Stop the discount exactly on the license end date |
If your store sells products with long lead times (furniture, imported devices), move the inventory item to the first day of the plan rather than waiting for the whole first week.
Costs vary widely depending on the type and size of the store. The following figures are approximate market ranges as of 2026 for a small to mid-sized store, excluding 15% VAT unless stated otherwise, and they vary by provider and the condition of the store:
| Item | Approximate cost in SAR | When do you need it? |
|---|---|---|
| Ministry of Commerce discount license | 300 (government fee per shop) | Always, for any discount |
| Speed audit and fixes | 1,500 – 6,000 | If mobile pages are slow or the theme is overloaded with plugins |
| Load test with a report | 1,500 – 5,000 | For self-hosted stores (WooCommerce or custom-built) |
| Temporary hosting upgrade for the season | 150 – 1,500 per month | If the test shows the current plan cannot cope |
| Designed seasonal landing page | 2,000 – 7,000 | One-time, and reused every year at the same URL |
| Managing ad campaigns for the season | 2,500 – 8,000 in fees | If you do not have a team to manage campaigns daily |
| The ad budget itself | Set by your sales target, cost per click and conversion rate | Calculate it from the target, not from what is available: (sales target ÷ average order ÷ conversion rate) × cost per click |
| WhatsApp marketing messages | Per message according to Meta's published pricing + platform subscription | When sending to an opted-in list through the WhatsApp API |
The rule we recommend: spending on speed, payments and tracking comes before raising the ad budget. Every advertising riyal sent to a slow store or broken tracking is wasted twice: once on the click, and once on the wrong decision you make based on incomplete data.
An Instagram post saying "Discounts up to 70% start next week" counts as announcing a discount. If the license has not been issued, you are exposing your store to liability. Obtain the license first, then start the pre-announcement.
Raising the price before the season and then "lowering" it is a regulatory violation, and a marketing mistake too: Saudi customers compare prices, price-tracking tools are widespread, and it can even lead to a complaint.
Every change during the season's week is a risk with no time to fix it. Most store outages in the seasons are caused by a change made "in a hurry", not by visitor pressure itself.
Shipping companies receive several times their usual orders during the season. A store that has not agreed on capacity and pickup times in advance finds its orders at the back of the queue.
A thousand orders with a negative margin after the discount, commission, shipping and returns are worse than three hundred profitable ones. Calculate the net profit of each offer at the end of every day, and stop losing offers and ads immediately. And if you want to raise conversions without an extra discount, read our guide to conversion rate optimization (CRO).
And if your store itself is the problem (an old theme, a complicated checkout, slow mobile pages), the next season is an opportunity to rebuild it after the peak, not during it. This is what we work on in Bateel's e-commerce store design service, alongside the digital marketing services that run seasonal campaigns and measure their profit.
Yes. Discounting in Saudi Arabia requires a license from the Ministry of Commerce for shops and online stores alike, issued electronically through the discounts system. It requires a Commercial Registration or registered trademark and a list of products with their prices before and after the discount, and its published fee is SAR 300 per shop. The license must be shown to consumers for the whole duration of the offer.
White Friday 2026 falls on Friday 27 November, the last Friday of the month. But many stores start their offers a week or more before and extend them to the end of November, so plan for a peak running roughly from 20 to 30 November, and start preparing at least four weeks before the date.
Saudi platform guides commonly state that a merchant can issue 3 licenses a year totaling 90 days, with full or partial discounts not exceeding 45 days per license. The Ministry may announce exceptional seasons that are not deducted from the annual allowance. Check your actual balance in the discounts system before planning.
Start search campaigns and audience building about two weeks before the season with a warm-up budget, then raise it gradually as the offers begin. Starting early gives you data on the winning ads and an audience ready for retargeting before cost per click rises in peak week. And do not announce the discount before the license is issued.
With a load test that simulates three to five times your store's busiest day, measuring response times on the product, cart and checkout pages. This applies to self-hosted stores; for Salla and Zid stores the infrastructure is the platform's responsibility, and it is enough to test the purchase flow with real orders and lighten images and apps.
Preparing your store for White Friday is 30 items spread over four weeks, not an ad campaign that launches on Thursday. Speed and payments first, then the audience and offers calculated on your margin, then inventory and shipping agreed in writing, then the discount license that protects your store from violations. Whoever starts today enters the season knowing their numbers; whoever postpones enters it putting out fires.
At Bateel Tech Solutions in Riyadh we work on stores and digital marketing together, so we can review your store technically, prepare the season page and set up its campaigns within the weeks that remain. And if your website needs a wider rebuild, see our website design service. Contact us on WhatsApp or through the Contact Us Page and get a free consultation and a clear plan for your season.
