Black Friday 2026 AI-shopping checklist

Updated 2026-10-16 · 8 min read · By the ProductSeen team

Black Friday is Friday, November 27, 2026 and Cyber Monday is November 30. This year, a meaningful number of shoppers will start with a question to an AI assistant instead of a search box: "gift for a dad who likes grilling, under $75." Here's a prioritized list to make sure your products can be found, understood and recommended.

Week 1 (now): make sure AI can get in

• Check robots.txt at /robots.txt. OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User and PerplexityBot should not be disallowed. How to read and fix it.
• Check bot protection. Review firewall, CDN and anti-bot app settings so verified AI search crawlers aren't blocked.
• Remove leftover noindex tags on product, collection and homepage templates.
• Confirm your sitemap loads at /sitemap.xml and includes products. It's declared in robots.txt.
• Run a baseline scan with ProductSeen and save the link.

Week 2: fix the product data

• Product schema on every product page, with price, currency, availability and brand. Copy-paste JSON-LD.
• Barcodes (GTIN) on your top sellers and gift products first. GTIN guide.
• Descriptions that answer gift questions: who it's for, size, what's included, whether it arrives gift-ready.
• Clear, descriptive titles ("Cast Iron Grill Press, 8-inch, Pre-seasoned" rather than "The Smasher").
• Product type and category set on every product.
• At least 2–3 good images per product.
• Review markup from a review app showing genuine customer ratings.

Week 3: holiday-specific details

• Holiday shipping cutoffs stated in plain text on product pages or a shipping page ("Order by Dec 15 for delivery by Dec 24 in the U.S.").
• Return policy for gifts (extended holiday returns, gift receipts) in plain text, and in hasMerchantReturnPolicy schema if you can.
• Gift collections with useful names and descriptions: "Gifts under $50", "Gifts for coffee lovers".
• Accurate stock levels. Hide or mark sold-out items, so assistants don't send shoppers to dead ends.
• Sale prices that flow into schema and revert after the sale.
• llms.txt with your holiday shipping and returns summary (optional). Template.

Final week: freeze and verify

• Re-scan and compare against your baseline.
• Test real questions in ChatGPT and Perplexity that your customers would ask. Note whether your products appear and whether details are right.
• Freeze big theme or app changes so nothing breaks your schema or robots.txt during peak traffic.
• Watch referrals from chatgpt.com and perplexity.ai in your analytics.

Shopify-specific shortcuts

• OpenAI's merchant page says Shopify catalogs are already integrated with ChatGPT shopping, so focus your time on data quality, not applications. Full Shopify guide.
• Use bulk edit to fill Barcode, Product type and Vendor quickly.
• If you've edited robots.txt.liquid in the past, re-check it.

Not on Shopify?

OpenAI's page says merchants outside Shopify and Etsy apply to share a product feed and may wait. Apply early, but don't wait on it: ChatGPT can also read your site directly, so crawler access and structured data still matter this season.

More guides

• How to get your Shopify store into ChatGPT shopping
• robots.txt and AI crawlers, explained for store owners
• Product schema for AI shopping, with copy-paste JSON-LD
• GTINs and why AI shopping agents need them
• llms.txt for online stores: what it is and a template