Jimmy Kim breaks down three BFCM launch strategies: Early Bird (November 1-10) for high inventory, Core Week (Thanksgiving week) for most brands, and Late Burst (Thanksgiving through Cyber Tuesday) for limited-luxury brands. Pick the timing that matches your inventory and customer base.
You called it the flexible start framework and it really boils down to 3 different options depending on your brand inventory and kind of your demand curve. So I would say that there's approach number 1, which is like the early bird. And these are people starting November 1st, November 10th. So in a couple weeks from now, these are best for brands with heavy inventory or a lot of repeat buyers, something that people are constantly building. And the big thing I would note here is that you want to build momentum and cash early and it prevents like the fulfillment bottlenecks that you might crave for. Then you've got the approach number 2, which is like the core week. I'm talking about Monday of Thanksgiving week. So you're giving yourself almost a full week ahead of time and going into it. This is best for most balanced brands. So the majority of brands are going to find the most effectiveness here where you're going to have urgency while still staying relevant at the end of it. And then the last one I would almost call the approach is like the late burst. If you've got a brand— Yeah. That's limited luxury, high margin, you guys just sell in scarcity. Well, then you should be running literally a Thanksgiving Day to Cyber Tuesday, I think is now the new marker here, because you basically went on scarcity and exclusivity at this point.
