Lowe’s will start four weeks of Black Friday deals on Oct. 29, according to an Oct. 8 company release, nearly a month before the traditional Nov. 27 date.
If you run a high-ticket home, appliance, outdoor or tool store on Shopify, that date is your new Black Friday. Lowe’s lists major appliances, power tools, flooring and cabinets among its doorbuster categories, and those are the products your Google Shopping ads compete on. This is an Ecommerce Paradise breakdown of what the schedule says, what it does to your margins, and what to lock in before Oct. 29.
The plan below covers the dates, the shopper data behind them, the math on a hypothetical ad budget, and five moves for the next 17 days. My guide to how high-ticket dropshipping works covers the model if you are newer to it.
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Lowe’s Black Friday Deals Start Oct. 29 and Run Four Weeks
Lowe’s said in an Oct. 8 release, distributed through PR Newswire, that four weeks of Black Friday deals begin Oct. 29. The release as carried by Finviz lists a schedule of events rather than one sale date.
The 12 Days of Deals start Nov. 16. Thanksgiving week brings what the company calls its biggest savings of the season, and stores close on Thanksgiving Day. Doorbusters open to all customers on Nov. 27, and December Deal Drops run Dec. 3 to 24.
The doorbuster categories named in the release include major appliances, power tools and tool sets, flooring, cabinets, ladders, paint and pre-lit Christmas trees. MyLowe’s Rewards and Pro Rewards members get early access to doorbusters in November, plus free same-day delivery on eligible orders with a $25 minimum if they order by 2 p.m., per the release.
Jen Wilson, Lowe’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer, framed the season around the home: “The holidays should be about enjoying your home, not stressing over everything it takes to get it ready.” The release also cites fiscal 2025 sales above $86 billion and more than 1,750 stores. It lists categories and dates rather than discount percentages, so nobody outside Lowe’s knows yet how deep the doorbusters go.
The wider forecast is large. Adobe projects $275.1 billion in U.S. online holiday sales for Nov. 1 to Dec. 31, up 6.7% from last year. Furniture is forecast at $33.4 billion, up 7.3%, and Adobe expects the best furniture and appliance deals on Black Friday itself.
On discount depth, Adobe expects furniture and appliance discounts to peak at 18%, down from 19% for furniture and 19.2% for appliances in 2025. Across categories it sees discounts of up to 14% in early November and up to 21% just before Thanksgiving.
Why Retailers Keep Pulling Black Friday Into October
Lowe’s is not early by accident. Adobe said in its forecast, as reported by Retail Dive on Sept. 28, that October’s Prime Big Deal Days have “changed the shape of the holiday season,” pushing retailers to manage promotions and inventory more carefully. Retail Dive reported that Adobe expects close to $10 billion in spending around the Prime event.
I covered the results of that event in my breakdown of Prime Big Deal Days spending, where only 2% of items topped $100. Big-box chains read that as proof shoppers will buy in October if the price signal shows up.
The demand side is shakier. The University of Michigan’s preliminary October consumer sentiment reading came in at 46.3, down from 48.1 in September and 53.6 a year earlier. Joanne Hsu, the survey’s director, said durable-goods buying conditions “plummeted amid high prices and borrowing costs.” I walked through the numbers in consumer sentiment falls as durables buying sinks, and the final October reading is due Oct. 23.
Borrowing costs are part of it. The Federal Reserve’s meeting calendar shows its next rate decision on Oct. 27 to 28, which lands the day before Lowe’s starts. Whatever the committee does, shoppers financing a $900 purchase will feel it on the card they use.
Shoppers are stretching. An ICSC survey of 1,003 U.S. adults fielded Sept. 21 to 23 found 49% expect to borrow to cover holiday purchases, 58% plan to try a new brand and 61% plan to use AI tools or assistants. The details are in my post on the ICSC holiday survey.
There is a counterpoint, and it matters. Adobe sees shallower discounts than last year, not a markdown war, and it still projects record online spending. Forecasts and a weak sentiment reading can both be true, because higher prices inflate dollar totals without adding units. Plan for fewer, more careful buyers who compare more tabs before they pay.
I would not read the sentiment number as a reason to pull back. It is a reason to make every click earn its keep. A shopper who feels squeezed does not stop buying a dishwasher or a mower, because those are replacement purchases. That shopper takes longer, asks for the price in writing, and leaves for a competitor if the page feels thin.
There is also a structural point here that I keep coming back to. When big chains move their sale earlier, the shopper’s research starts earlier too, which means the first click on your ad may happen three weeks before the purchase. Your retargeting window and your follow-up email matter more than they did when everything happened in one weekend.
What Lowe’s Four-Week Sale Does to High-Ticket Store Margins
My read is that Lowe’s does not take your customers. It takes your attention window and your price anchor. A shopper who sees a name-brand range or a tool kit advertised by a 1,750-store chain in the first week of November now carries that price into every Google Shopping comparison for the next four weeks.
The first-order impact lands on conversion rate, not traffic. Your cost per click does not fall because Lowe’s runs a sale, but the shopper clicking your ad is comparing it to a doorbuster. A buyer on a $900 item who is borrowing to pay for it is price-checking harder than usual, and the ICSC numbers say that is a lot of buyers.
Here is hypothetical math, not a reported result. Say you spend $400 a day on Shopping ads at a $1.00 cost per click, which is 400 clicks. At a 1.0% conversion rate and a $900 average order, that is four orders and $3,600 in revenue. On a 20% gross margin you keep $720 before costs, so $320 above ad spend.
Now drop conversion by 30% to 0.7%. You get 2.8 orders and $2,520 in revenue, which is $504 of gross margin and only $104 above ad spend. A 30% conversion drop cut contribution by about two-thirds. Breakeven return on ad spend at a 20% margin is 5.0, and your ROAS slid from 9.0 to 6.3, so you stayed profitable but with far less room for error.
The thresholds are what I’d watch. If your ROAS stays above roughly 1.5 times your breakeven, hold the budget and keep your prices. If it falls toward breakeven, cut spend on the products Lowe’s is advertising and move it to specialty items it does not stock. If a campaign drops below breakeven for three straight days, pause it rather than chase it with a discount you cannot afford.
One more layer to the math. Cost per click usually climbs as the holiday peak approaches because more advertisers bid on the same product searches. Suppose your cost per click rises from $1.00 to $1.25 on the same $400 daily budget. That is 320 clicks instead of 400, and at the 0.7% conversion rate you are down to about 2.2 orders, or roughly $2,016 in revenue and $403 in gross margin. Against $400 of spend you are essentially at breakeven. These are illustrative numbers, not benchmarks, but the pattern is the point: two modest moves at once can erase a profitable campaign.
That is why I like to protect conversion first. A faster page, a visible phone number, a clear delivery estimate and a plain return policy each move the rate by a little, and together they move it by a lot. If you sell heavy items, state who delivers, whether it is curbside or in-room, and when the buyer should expect a call to schedule. Big-box sites often bury that, and it is one place a specialty store can look better on the same product.
Look at your product mix too. Items that Lowe’s lists as doorbusters, such as major appliances and power tools, are the ones where a shopper is most likely to compare your price against a number they saw on TV. Items that need advice, like a full outdoor kitchen setup or a flooring order measured to the room, are the ones where your expertise is the product. Put your best budget behind the second group and treat the first as a margin-protection exercise.
Discounting is the wrong first reflex. Adobe expects peak furniture and appliance discounts to be about one point shallower than 2025, so a 30% price cut is not the market norm. Most suppliers also hold you to minimum advertised pricing, which means you probably cannot match a manufacturer-funded doorbuster even if you wanted to. Ask your rep for the brand’s holiday pricing window before you touch a price.
Tariffs add pressure on the cost side for some niches. Cabinet duties are due to double to 50% on Jan. 1 unless deals land, as I explained in cabinet tariffs double to 50% on Jan. 1. If you sell cabinets or flooring, stocking decisions for Q1 are tangled up with your Q4 promotions.
Specialty stores win on the things a chain cannot do on a doorbuster budget: fit advice, a phone number that answers, warranty clarity and delivery on a heavy item. That is the case for building a store around expertise, which is the work my team does in the turnkey done-for-you build.
Want my team to scale the store you already have before Lowe’s four-week sale starts on Oct. 29? See the scaling service →
What to Do Before Oct. 29: Five Moves for Your Store
You have 17 days. Do these five in order, because each one feeds the next.
- Pull last November’s data from Shopify and Google Ads and mark your ROAS, conversion rate and average order value for the last week of October through Cyber Monday. Then set your breakeven ROAS from your real margin, using a tool such as Finaloop for bookkeeping so the margin number is trustworthy. Read the budget as the new quality score argument before you resize campaigns.
- Split your Shopping campaigns into products that overlap with Lowe’s doorbuster categories and products that do not. Raise budget on the second group and cap spend on the first. My guide to turning Google Shopping clicks into sales shows how to read the data. Semrush will show you which holiday keywords your competitors bid on.
- Call your top suppliers and ask for the holiday MAP calendar, free freight thresholds and stock levels through December. Get dates in writing. Use the call to confirm lead times on heavy items, then calculate delivery quotes with Easyship so you are not guessing on freight.
- Build your financing and trust message before shoppers need it. Check that your product pages show monthly payment options, the phone number, the warranty and the return window. For context on how retailers are using financing, see Wayfair’s 0% APR Klarna offer. Set up live chat with Tidio so questions get answered the same day.
- Schedule your email and SMS flows now. Build a pre-sale list message for Oct. 27, a doorbuster-week message for Nov. 16 and a last-chance sequence for Dec. 3. Build them in Klaviyo. My ecommerce email marketing guide has the flow structure.
Chargebacks climb in Q4, so tighten your evidence file now. Visa’s wider evidence rules start Oct. 24, which I covered in Visa widens chargeback evidence rules. Keep delivery confirmations and signed receipts for every heavy item you ship.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Lowe’s start Black Friday on Oct. 29?
Lowe’s said in an Oct. 8 release that four weeks of Black Friday deals begin Oct. 29. The doorbusters open to all customers on Nov. 27, and rewards members get early access in November.
Do I need to match Lowe’s prices?
No. Most suppliers enforce minimum advertised pricing, and you cannot beat a manufacturer-funded doorbuster. Compete on service, expertise and delivery, and see my notes on high-ticket conversion systems.
Should I raise my Google Ads budget now?
Raise it only on products that do not overlap with Lowe’s doorbuster categories, and only if your ROAS is above breakeven. Review the Google rules on fast-changing prices before you reprice during the sale.
Will Shopify show my sale prices to AI shopping agents?
Shopify now shares compare-at prices with AI agents through its catalog, as I explained in Shopify shows AI agents your compare-at prices. Set compare-at prices honestly and only for real markdowns.
How do I pay for extra inventory if cash is tight?
Borrowing is expensive right now, so check your credit lines and terms with suppliers first. I flagged the pressure in Treasury yield hits a 24-year high.
How do I handle the extra questions Q4 brings?
Put a helpdesk like Gorgias in front of your inbox now, and write canned answers for delivery times, returns and financing before the rush starts. If you want a second set of eyes on the plan, Explore Turnkey Builds.
Can a high-ticket follow-up process help in November?
Yes. Phone and email follow-up on quote requests recovers buyers who comparison-shopped, and I outlined the process in high-ticket sales follow-up.
Want 1-on-1 coaching to build a Black Friday plan that holds up against big-box sales? Get the coaching details →
Pull your numbers this week and set your breakeven before the first Lowe’s ad runs. Subscribe to the YouTube channel for daily breakdowns. More breaking news coming through the day.
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Trevor Fenner is an ecommerce entrepreneur and world traveler from Seattle, Washington, and the founder of Ecommerce Paradise, a platform focused on helping entrepreneurs build and scale profitable high-ticket ecommerce and dropshipping businesses. With over a decade of hands-on experience, Trevor specializes in high-ticket dropshipping strategy, niche and product selection, supplier recruiting and onboarding, Google & Bing Shopping ads, ecommerce SEO, and systems-driven automation and scaling. Through Ecommerce Paradise, he provides free education via in-depth guides like How to Start High-Ticket Dropshipping, advanced training through the High-Ticket Dropshipping Masterclass, and fully done-for-you turnkey ecommerce services for entrepreneurs who want a faster, more hands-off path to growth. Trevor is known for emphasizing sustainable, real-world ecommerce models over hype-driven tactics, helping store owners build scalable, sellable, and location-independent brands.
He maintains homes in Seattle and Bali, spends most of the year overseas, and usually returns to Seattle for about a month each summer.
