Promotional events

Enhanced plan

A promotional event is a holiday or a sale that comes back every year, such as Black Friday, Christmas, Diwali or your own summer sale. (A one-time sale works too.) You add it once with the uplift you expect, and once you switch it on, every forecast expects that much more demand on its dates, year after year. Your reorder dates and quantities follow.

Where to find it
Find an event
Add an event from the holiday list
Create your own event
Set up the event
Date rules
The event page
Past and upcoming years
Switch an event on
Archive an event
Choose the uplift
Analyze past years
Measure one past occurrence
One uplift or one per product
Limits
Delete an event
See also

Where to find it

Open Inventory Planning and click the Promotional Events tile. The list shows every event, archived ones included, most recently changed first. The count under the title reads, for example, “(34 total)”, or “(3 of 34)” while a search or filter is active. The columns:

Event: the name, with its category.
Next occurrence: the next dates the event runs, or ”-” when it has none.
Repeats: the date rule in words, for example Every year, 1 day after Thanksgiving (US), or Does not repeat for a one-time event.
Uplift: the uplift its next dates get, for example +40%. An event measured per product reads Per product variant, with the fallback a product without enough sales gets, for example fallback +20%. An event with no uplift set reads Not set.
In forecasts: On when the event’s Use in forecasts switch is on, so every forecast expects its extra demand; Off when it is off; Archived when the event is archived, which keeps it out of every forecast whatever its switch says.

With no events yet, the list says “No promotional events yet” and offers Add event. A search or filter that matches nothing says “No events match these filters”, with Clear filters.

Promotional events come with the Enhanced and Elevate plans. If your shop moves to a lower plan, the events stop changing your forecasts. You can still open and review them, but not add, edit or delete them: Add event is greyed out, and a banner says “Promotional Events is part of the Enhanced Plan and isn’t available on lower plans.” The forecast’s Amplifiers popover still lists the events, tagged Needs the Enhanced plan. Nothing is deleted, and the events lift your forecasts again once you upgrade.

Find an event

Search the list by name (“Search events by name…”), or filter it by Category (Holiday, Promotion, Sales event, Other; pick one or several). Once it’s enabled for your shop, you can also describe what you want with AI search, for example “holiday events”. Save a filter set as a preset to share it with everyone in your shop. The search and filters live in the page address, so they survive a reload in the Shopify admin. See Search, filters & saved views.

Add an event from the holiday list

Click Add event. The Add promotional event dialog opens on a list of popular shopping holidays from around the world:

Fixed dates, such as Valentine’s Day, Singles’ Day or Christmas.
A weekday of the month, such as US Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Mother’s Day or Memorial Day.
Around Easter, such as Easter itself, Carnival or Pentecost.
Lunar calendars and announced dates, such as Lunar New Year, Ramadan, Eid al-Fitr, Diwali, Holi, Hanukkah, the Super Bowl and El Buen Fin.
Dates you enter each year, such as Amazon Prime Day or Click Frenzy, whose dates are announced only shortly before.

Search by name or by country code: black, eid or IN (which lists India’s festivals first). Each row shows the countries it is popular in (or Worldwide) and its next dates, or You enter the dates, Not announced yet, No upcoming date or No dates after 2031.

Click a holiday (or highlight it with the arrow keys and press Enter) to go to the setup step. The event takes the holiday’s category and date rule. If the holiday overlaps an event you already have, for example Boxing Day and Christmas, the setup step says so, for example Overlaps Christmas Eve / Christmas Day (Dec 24 – 26, 2026). When both are switched on, their uplifts add up on the shared days. It compares with the events on the list you came from, so a filtered list can miss one.

Create your own event

If your holiday or sale isn’t in the list, click Create my own, next to the search. Enter a Name and a Category (it starts on Promotion), then choose how the event repeats. One event is one yearly series. A sale you run twice a year is two events.

Leave Repeats every year switched on for a yearly event, and pick a Date rule (see Date rules). It starts on Same weekday as last year.
Switch it off for a one-time sale: it happens once, on the dates you pick.

Same weekday as last year and a one-time event ask for the Start date and End date of one occurrence. Both start empty (“Pick a date”), and Next stays off until you pick them (“Pick the start and end dates to continue.”). Picking a start fills an empty end with the same day. The other rules ask for their own date (a month and day, a weekday of the month, …) and a Length (days) instead. If you entered dates first, switching to one of these rules carries them over: Same date every year, for example, takes the start’s month and day and the length of your dates.

Click Next to set the event up.

Set up the event

Before the event is added, the setup step (Set up Black Friday, named after your event) asks for what matters most. Its subtitle repeats the date rule in words and, for a holiday from the list, the next dates at the length you set.

Name and Length (days), for a holiday from the list. Both start as the holiday’s own; rename it or make it longer (1 to 350 days), for example Black Friday weekend over 4 days. Holidays whose dates you enter each year take their length from those dates, so they have no length field, and the subtitle reminds you to enter each year’s dates on the event’s page (Actions › Add occurrence). Some holidays add a short note, for example how their length was chosen.
Uplift source (it starts on Fixed %), Measure it for and Uplift (%) or Fallback uplift (%): see Choose the uplift.
Notes, optional.
Use in forecasts, off by default: “Off: forecasts stay as they are until you switch it on from the event’s page.” Switch it on here and every forecast lifts demand on the event’s upcoming dates as soon as it is added.

Click Add event: the event’s page opens. Use Back to the holiday list or Back to change your pick.

Date rules

The date rule works out each year’s dates, so you never re-enter them:

Same weekday as last year: 52 weeks after the dates you enter, so the weekday stays the same. Good for Black Friday or a weekend sale. It counts from the nearest stored year and takes that year’s length. As 52 weeks are a day or two short of a year, every five or six years it lands a week before a holiday such as Black Friday: store that year’s real dates when that happens.
Same date every year: for Christmas, an anniversary or a fixed-date sale.
A weekday of the month: for example the 4th Thursday of November. Pick the 1st to 5th or the last one. A year without a 5th one has no date that year.
Around Easter: Easter Sunday or Orthodox Easter Sunday, moved to the day you need.
Relative to a holiday: follows another holiday from the list, for example 1 day after US Thanksgiving.
Published holiday dates: for lunar and announced holidays; follows the published dates. Years not announced yet are not projected.
Only the dates you enter: no rule; you add each year’s dates on the event yourself.

Not every rule is offered everywhere. Create my own offers the first five. Published holiday dates comes with a holiday from the list that uses it. Only the dates you enter is offered in Edit, and Same weekday as last year only once the event has a stored date. Keep the current rule appears there only for a rule the form can’t show.

Under Move the date, click Add a step to shift the date: Move by days (for example 3 days before, up to 366) or Move to a weekday (for example the 2nd Thursday after). A weekday step counts from the day after: the 2nd Thursday after Thursday Oct 1, 2026 is Oct 15. Steps apply in order, up to five, so a date of Oct 1 with one step is one rule that reads Every year, the 2nd Thursday after Oct 1. A rule with several steps reads in the same order, for example Every year: start on Jan 1, then 3 days before, then the 1st Friday after. Steps can move the date into another year, and the preview, the event page and your forecasts all follow them. Same weekday as last year takes no steps.

Length (days) sets how long each occurrence lasts, from 1 to 350 days. Same weekday as last year takes its length from the dates you enter, so it has no length field.

Preview · recent and upcoming dates shows the dates the rule gives for the last two and the next three occurrences, so you can check it before saving. Past ones are greyed and marked past. A year without a date says why, for example No 5th Monday in May 2027 or Super Bowl 2028: not announced yet.

The event page

Click an event to open it. Under its name, a line says who created it and when. The Details card has the Use in forecasts switch on its right and two lines of key facts:

Category.
Repeats: the rule in words, for example Every year, 1 day after Thanksgiving (US).
Length: shown when the rule sets each year’s length. Same weekday as last year, a one-time event and dates you enter yourself keep the length of their stored dates.
Next: the next dates, or None scheduled.
Uplift: the percent forecasts use now and where it comes from: fixed (you set it), measured (from your sales at a past year) or fallback (no past year measured yet). An event measured per product reads Per product variant. Not set or Not measured yet means nothing sets an uplift, so the event adds nothing.

Below them, Uplift settings shows the uplift source, what applies, the fallback and what your past years measured. They are read-only on the page: change them, the name, the category and the date rule with Edit. The changes apply to every projected year, while dates you stored keep theirs.

Notes sit at the bottom of the card. Click them to edit in place (up to 5,000 characters); they save when you click away.

Occurrences lists the event’s dates over the last three and the next two years, newest first, with their Days, Uplift and Status. Its subtitle counts the dates you stored, for example 2 stored occurrences · Projected years follow the rule until you edit or skip them. Dates that are over are greyed.

Status	Meaning
Projected	Worked out from the date rule. Nothing is stored until you change it.
Upcoming	A date you stored that hasn’t happened yet.
Past	A date you stored that is over.
Skipped	A year you marked as not happening.

Below the list, a line names each year the rule gives no date, for example Super Bowl 2028: not announced yet or No 5th Monday in May 2027.

Next to Edit, Analyze past years estimates the uplift from your past sales (see Analyze past years). Under Actions you can Add occurrence to store a year’s dates yourself, for example the dates a past sale really ran (“A stored year replaces the one the rule would project.”), Archive an event (it stays on the list but is in no forecast, see Archive an event) or Delete it for good. Stored dates of one event can’t overlap each other.

Past and upcoming years

A projected year applies to your forecasts as it is. Change it only when that year is different:

Edit this year stores the year with your dates; the rule keeps projecting the other years. Keep the dates within 60 days of the projected ones, or the rule projects that year again.
Skip this year marks the year as not happening. Restore brings it back.
On a projected year that is already over, the same actions read Edit and Didn’t happen.
On a stored Past or Upcoming year, Edit changes its dates and Delete removes them: “Removes the dates. If the rule covers that year, its projected dates come back.” Click Delete occurrence to confirm.
On every year that is over and happened, Analyze measures its uplift (see Measure one past occurrence). The next occurrence’s row offers Analyze past years.

Switch an event on

The Use in forecasts switch on the Details card is the event’s one on/off switch. A new event starts off, unless you switched it on in the setup step. When it is on, every forecast view lifts demand on the event’s upcoming dates, and so does everything that works from a forecast: reorder dates and quantities, orders you create from a forecast, and forecast-based notifications and reports. A toast confirms it, for example “Black Friday is now used in forecasts”. A view can still leave the event out: see Promotional events in the forecast.

Each forecast applies the event’s dates within the next two years, from tomorrow on.

Archive an event

Archive an event you don’t need now but may want back, for example a sale you’re pausing for a year. Open the event and choose Actions › Archive: “An archived event is in no forecast, whatever its switch says. You can restore it any time.”

The event stays on the list, marked Archived, and its page title carries an Archived tag.
Its Use in forecasts switch shows off and can’t be changed: “Archived events are never used in forecasts.” The switch’s own setting is kept.
Edit, Add occurrence, Analyze past years, the notes and the occurrence actions are locked until you restore it (“Restore the event from the archive to edit it”). Delete still works.

To bring it back, choose Actions › Restore from archive and click Restore. The event comes back to the calendar, and its forecast switch keeps its last setting.

Choose the uplift

The uplift is how much higher demand runs on the event’s days, in percent: 40% means 1.4 times the normal forecast. Enter 0 to 1,000; an event can’t lower the forecast. Each event has one Uplift source, set in the setup step or in Edit:

Fixed %: you set the uplift, and every product’s demand rises by it.
From past years: the uplift is measured from your sales at this event in past years. Measure it for picks Your whole shop (one uplift for every product) or Each product variant (see One uplift or one per product). The percentage you enter becomes the Fallback uplift (%): it applies until a past year has enough sales to measure.

With From past years for your whole shop, forecasts use the most recent past year that could be measured. Negative results are shown, but forecasts use 0% for them, as events only add demand. Forecasts also use at most +1,000%: a year that measured more shows its own result, and the dialog says that forecasts use at most +1,000%.

The uplift is the event’s: the dates in Occurrences have none of their own. A date that still carries its own uplift from earlier shows it with (this date), and Use the event’s uplift clears it.

Analyze past years

Click Analyze past years in the page header, or on the next occurrence’s row: an upcoming event can’t be measured yet, but its past years can. (Before the event has run once, the button is locked: “There is no past Black Friday to analyze yet”.) The dialog compares what your whole shop sold per day at the event in each of the last 3 years with the days before it (the event’s comparison period, 56 days unless you changed it), matched by weekday. It lists each year by its dates (for example Sep 14, 2025), reading Not analyzed yet until you click Analyze. Then each year shows its result:

the measured uplift, for example +38%, and the range over the measured years, for example Measured: +22% to +38% (2 years);
Too few sales to measure, with the reason, for example No sales history before it when the shop had no orders yet, Only 3 days of sales history before it, or No sales in the 56 days before it.

A year is measured when at least 7 days before it can be compared and something sold in them.

Below the years, the dialog says what your forecasts use now, for example Forecasts use +38%, measured at Cyber Week 2025, the most recent year with enough sales. If no year could be measured, it says None of these years had enough sales to measure, so forecasts use your fallback of +20%. An event with a Fixed % keeps it; when a past year was measured, the dialog shows both values and offers Switch to From past years. If the next occurrence still has its own uplift from earlier, the dialog says so.

Each result is saved on its year, and a year that was only projected is stored as a past occurrence. Click Run again after new orders came in.

Measure one past occurrence

On a past occurrence, click Analyze for a closer look at one year:

Compare with the 56 days before the event: change the number of days (7 to 365). Check Keep this period to save it as the event’s comparison period: Analyze past years and the per-product uplift then use it too.
Days are matched by weekday: a Friday in the event is compared with the Fridays before it.
Days inside other events are left out of the comparison, and so are days before your first order. The result says how many days were left out.
Click Run analysis. The result shows the uplift, for example +38% vs the 56 days before with the comparison dates, and the units sold per day during the event against the units expected from the comparison period.
A chart shows the units sold per day, the units expected on a normal day (same weekday) as a dashed line, the event as a shaded band, and the days left out of the comparison hatched.

If fewer than 7 usable days remain, or nothing sold in the comparison period, the dialog says Not enough history: “No uplift is suggested, and nothing from this analysis is used in forecasts.”

The result is saved on that year, so reopening the dialog shows it (“Last analyzed …”) with Run again; the chart appears after a run. Your other analyzed years are listed under Earlier analyses. With From past years for your whole shop, forecasts use the most recent year with enough sales, so analyzing an older year doesn’t replace a newer result. A result below 0% or above +1,000% gets a short note on what forecasts use from it.

The analysis counts every order, including orders from your connected stores, but not test orders, orders your order exclusion rules leave out, or products your data exclusion rules leave out (for example a shipping protection add-on). It cannot see stock-outs: if you sold out during the event, the measured uplift is lower than the real demand.

One uplift or one per product

Not every product sells more during an event. With From past years, Measure it for decides:

Your whole shop: one uplift for every product, from your shop’s total sales.
Each product variant: each variant’s uplift is worked out from its own sales at the event’s most recent past occurrence, every time the forecast runs. Nothing is stored per product, so the list of products never needs updating.

A variant’s own measurement counts in proportion to how much it normally sells in that period. A variant that sells only a few units leans mostly on the shop-wide uplift (or on the fallback until one is measured), so one lucky order does not set its uplift. A steady seller keeps nearly all of its own measured lift. Analyze past years still shows the shop-wide result, for reference.

Products without sales history sets what happens to a product that had no sales before the last occurrence, such as a new product:

Use the shop-wide uplift: it leans on your shop’s uplift from past years, or the fallback. New products are included.
No uplift: it is not lifted until it has sales at a past occurrence. With this choice the event needs no percentage, so the field is hidden.

The Uplift settings on the event page say what applies, for example Each variant’s uplift is worked out from its own sales at Black Friday 2025 when the forecast runs. Variants with few sales lean towards the shop-wide +38%. Before the event has run once, they say There is no past Black Friday to measure from yet.

The forecast’s reorder date hover shows each product’s result, for example Black Friday: measured +233 % (4 vs 1.2 expected at Black Friday 2025), weight 29 % → +95 %: the measured lift (4 units sold against 1.2 expected), how much it counts, and the uplift used. A product that couldn’t be measured says why instead, for example no sales history before Black Friday 2025.

Limits

Events apply to the whole shop: every product and every location. An event for one product or one store isn’t possible yet.
Uplifts only add demand. An event can’t lower the forecast, and it can’t block ordering, for example during a supplier’s holiday.
An event lasts at most 350 days, so one year never runs into the next.
Islamic holidays follow the Umm al-Qura calendar and can be a day off in your country. Holidays that begin at sunset are listed on their first full day.
Diwali, Dhanteras and Holi dates are included up to 2031. Diwali comes as two entries: Diwali (incl. Dhanteras), five days from Dhanteras, and Diwali (Lakshmi Puja day).
El Buen Fin is added with 5 days, the length of the 2025 and 2026 editions. Its length changes from year to year, so set Length (days) when you add it if an edition runs longer or shorter. Earlier years are projected with the same length, although the 2022 to 2024 editions ran 4 days: before you analyze them, correct their dates with Edit on their rows. Its dates are known up to 2026, and the Super Bowl’s up to 2027; later years read not announced yet until the dates are published.

Delete an event

Actions › Delete removes the event for good: “The event and its calendar disappear from every forecast and from this list. This cannot be undone.” Click Delete event to confirm; the list opens again. To keep the event but take it out of every forecast, archive it instead.