11.11 Sale Prep Checklist: A 40-Day, Week-by-Week Plan for SMEs

It’s 1 October. Q4 has officially started, and 11.11 is 41 days away.

Most owners we work with start thinking about 11.11 around 5 November. By then stock is rush-ordered at a worse price, the promo design is done overnight, and ads go live at D-1 (H-1, as Indonesian sellers write it) with no data behind them.

What follows is an 11.11 sale prep checklist for the last 40 days, week by week, with six fixed workstreams and a time estimate per task. Cafe, clinic, and salon owners usually know what needs doing. The hard part is finding the hours.

This post opens our Year-End Shopping Season series (10.10, 11.11, 12.12/Harbolnas, Christmas and New Year). A new article goes up every two days through October.

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Quick Summary

• Use six fixed workstreams every week: stock, offer, creative, ads, WhatsApp/email, admin/fulfillment.
• Block one 90-minute weekly meeting for decisions. Do the rest in roughly 30 minutes a day, or delegate it.
• Treat 10.10 as a small dress rehearsal. Prep it in week 1, review it in week 2, and save your best offer for 11.11.
• A small conversion ad set runs from week 3. The 11.11 ad set is scheduled to start at D-5, and nothing new launches at D-2.
• Total owner time: about 21 hours over 40 days (not counting sale day), heaviest in week 1 (about 5 hours) and week 5 (about 3.9 hours).

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The System: One Weekly Slot, Six Workstreams

Set this up once. It takes about 30 minutes.

1. Create one Google Sheet with six tabs or six columns: Stock, Offer, Creative, Ads, WhatsApp/Email, Admin. Copy in the tasks below, each with a named owner.
2. Block one recurring slot in Google Calendar every Friday from 08.00 to 09.30, until 6 November. Weeks here run Friday to Thursday (D-40 is Friday 2 October), so the meeting always opens the week. Invite a senior admin or cashier if you have one.
3. One rule: any task not finished in that slot gets a person’s name and a new date.

The workstreams stay fixed because leaks come from small things: running out of boxes, or a courier who can’t handle 200 pick-ups a day.

If you’re not sure which channels deserve the effort, spend an hour on a 10-point digital marketing audit before filling in the sheet.

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The 11.11 Sale Prep Checklist, D-40 to D-0

Days count back from 11 November. Times are your own hours as the owner, not your team’s. Most tasks in the tables get done inside the 90-minute Friday slot; the rest are spread across the week.

Week 1 (D-40 to D-34, 2–8 October): Decide the Numbers and Prep 10.10

The heaviest week. All the big decisions happen here, and 10.10 (a Saturday) needs to be ready by Wednesday 7 October.

Workstream	Task	Time
Stock	Pull last year’s 11.11 sales and October’s daily average. Set unit targets for up to 3 hero products.	40 min
Stock	Confirm lead times and minimum orders with suppliers. Order anything that takes over 2 weeks.	20 min
Stock	Ring-fence separate stock for 10.10 (around 20–30% of your 11.11 target) so you don’t eat into the 11.11 stock.	10 min
Offer	Pick one main 11.11 offer and work out the margin after marketplace fees. Write down the discount ceiling you won’t go past.	60 min
Offer	Decide the small 10.10 version: a thinner discount or a small freebie.	15 min
Creative	From photos and videos you already have, make 3 test creatives: one product photo, one 15-second video, one testimonial. A phone is enough.	60 min
Ads	In Meta Business Suite check payment and spending limit, in Events Manager check that the pixel fires, and in Google Ads check the conversion tag.	20 min
Ads	Publish one small 10.10 campaign with the test creatives by Wednesday 7 October.	30 min
WhatsApp/Email	Open Labels in WhatsApp Business and note the number of chats per label. Draft the 10.10 broadcast (app broadcasts only reach contacts who have saved your number).	30 min
Admin	Check the 11.11 campaign registration dates in Shopee Seller Centre (or the Tokopedia/TikTok Shop Seller Center) and calendar the deadline.	15 min
Total		About 5 hrs

If you only manage one thing this week, make it the offer and its ceiling. In our experience a bundle is usually safer than a straight price cut, except for commodity products that are easy to price-compare on Shopee or Tokopedia.

Week 2 (D-33 to D-27, 9–15 October): Run 10.10, Then Review It

10.10 lands on Saturday. The prep is done, so the job is to run it and take notes.

Workstream	Task	Time
Stock	Compare 10.10 units sold with what you ring-fenced. Recalculate your 11.11 needs if the gap is large.	20 min
Offer	Log 3 lessons from 10.10: buyer questions, reasons they hesitated, what sold.	20 min
Creative	Mark the creatives with the lowest cost per result.	15 min
Ads	Record CPC and cost per chat or purchase from the 10.10 campaign.	20 min
WhatsApp/Email	Send the 10.10 broadcast Saturday morning, active-customer label only. Note replies and opt-outs (people asking to stop). One grey tick after 2 days can mean an inactive number or a block.	30 min
Admin	Note how many orders per hour your team packed during 10.10. That number decides whether you need extra hands on 11.11.	15 min
Total		About 2 hrs

Week 3 (D-26 to D-20, 16–22 October): Warm Up the Ads and the Page

Workstream	Task	Time
Stock	Confirm your supplier order against the target. Get the delivery date in writing (a WhatsApp message or PO counts).	20 min
Offer	Lock the final offer using 10.10 data. Write the terms in 3–5 lines.	30 min
Creative	Make 3–4 variations of the 2 best 10.10 creatives.	60 min
Ads	Run one conversion ad set (WhatsApp messages or purchases) on a small budget. Build custom audiences of website visitors, video viewers, people who messaged your Page or Instagram, and an uploaded customer list of consented phone numbers.	45 min
WhatsApp/Email	Split labels into active, lapsed (6–12 months), and prospects. Remove anyone who asked you to stop.	45 min
Admin	Open your ad landing page on a phone: check the promo price, the WhatsApp button, and load time. People clicking an 11.11 ad should land on the 11.11 offer (see our landing page CRO guide).	30 min
Total		About 3.8 hrs

At Rp 100,000 a day, most SME ad sets never leave Meta’s learning phase (roughly 50 optimization events a week), and that’s fine.¹ This ad set’s real jobs are filling retargeting audiences and finding the creatives that sell; campaign structure is in our Meta Ads guide for small businesses.

Week 4 (D-19 to D-13, 23–29 October): Lock It In and Write the Messages

Workstream	Task	Time
Stock	Count the stock as it arrives. If anything is short, tell the supplier the same day.	30 min
Offer	Register for the marketplace campaign if you haven’t. Match the promo price on every channel.	30 min
Creative	Make countdown assets for D-7, D-3, D-1, and D-0 from one template.	45 min
Ads	Pause the creatives with the worst cost per result. Keep the structure that’s already running.	20 min
WhatsApp/Email	Adapt the 4 broadcasts and 2 quick replies below and save them under Business tools > Quick replies.	30 min
Admin	Put UTM tags on every promo link that goes to your website or promo page (including pages with a WhatsApp button). GA4 can’t see a direct wa.me link, so tag those with a prefilled message code instead, e.g. ?text=Hi%2C%20I%27d%20like%20the%2011.11%20bundle%20(IG). Check marketplace sales in Seller Centre.	20 min
Total		About 2.9 hrs

The messages, ready to adapt. Swap in your business name, product, and numbers:

BROADCAST 1: ANNOUNCEMENT (send at D-7)
Hi {name}, it's Kopi Teras here. On 11.11 we're opening our
Month's Supply bundle: 2 bottles of cold brew + a 250 g bag of
beans for Rp 299,000 (usually Rp 335,000). Only 120 bundles.
Want a heads-up the moment it opens? Just reply YES.
Reply STOP if you'd rather not hear from us.

BROADCAST 2: REMINDER (D-1 evening, only to people who said YES)
{name}, the Month's Supply bundle opens at 00.00 tonight, the
moment 11.11 starts.
You can order on Shopee ({link}) or right here in this chat.
Reply STOP if you'd rather not hear from us.

BROADCAST 3: SALE DAY (send at 08.00)
Morning {name}, the 11.11 bundles are live. {count} left as of
08.00. Order here or at {link}.
Reply STOP if you'd rather not hear from us.

BROADCAST 4: SALE NIGHT (send at 20.00, only to people who replied)
{name}, {count} Month's Supply bundles left and the price ends at
23.59 tonight. Reply ORDER and we'll set one aside.
Reply STOP if you'd rather not hear from us.

QUICK REPLY /soldout
Sorry, the 11.11 bundle just sold out. We can take a pre-order
at the same price, shipping 17 November. Shall we hold one for you?

QUICK REPLY /tracking
Here's your tracking number: {tracking}. It usually arrives in
1–3 days. If anything goes wrong, just reply in this chat.

The UTM naming convention we use is in our GA4, UTM, and attribution guide.

Week 5 (D-12 to D-6, 30 October to 5 November): Announce, Schedule, Prep the Stockroom

Workstream	Task	Time
Stock	Physically separate the 11.11 stock. Get packaging for your unit target plus 20%.	30 min
Offer	Post the announcement on Instagram, WhatsApp Status, and your Google Business Profile.	30 min
Creative	Film 1–2 behind-the-scenes clips; buyers often trust these more than polished promo designs. Post the D-7 asset alongside the announcement broadcast (4 November).	50 min
Ads	Duplicate the week 3 conversion ad set with the 11.11 creatives and publish it with a scheduled start date of 6 November (D-5). Don’t leave it as an unpublished draft; review only starts once it’s published.	45 min
WhatsApp/Email	Send the announcement broadcast to active customers. Swap your Greeting message (Business tools > Greeting message) for an 11.11 version; it only fires for new chats or ones inactive for 14 days. Tag everyone who replies YES with an “11.11 YES” label and build a broadcast list from it for the D-1 and sale-day sends.	40 min
Admin	Confirm courier pick-up times, cut-off, and daily capacity. For pre-orders, enable the Pre-order option on the Shopee/Tokopedia listing before D-7 (longer ship-by period); never sell pre-orders through a regular listing. Also check in Seller Centre whether pre-order listings are eligible for the 11.11 campaign.	40 min
Total		About 3.9 hrs

Ads get published now because Meta and Google both say most ads are reviewed within a day, but some take longer.²³

Week 6 (D-5 to D-1, 6–10 November): Countdown

Workstream	Task	Time
Stock	Check stock daily and match marketplace stock limits to what’s on the shelf.	10 min/day
Offer	No more changes; they confuse customers and staff.	0
Creative	Post the countdown assets on schedule.	10 min/day
Ads	The 11.11 ad set starts at D-5. Raise budgets gradually, by about 20–30% a day at most (our working rule of thumb, not a Meta figure).	15 min/day
WhatsApp/Email	Send the D-1 evening reminder to the “11.11 YES” broadcast list.	15 min
Admin	Team briefing: who answers chats, who packs, who handles stock, when breaks happen.	15 min
Total		About 3.4 hrs over 5 days

D-0 to D+3: Sale Day and After

SALE DAY (11 November)
[ ] 00.00–01.00  Check ads are live, check promo prices on every channel
[ ] 08.00        Sale-day broadcast to active customers
[ ] Every 2 hrs  Stock vs orders; pause ads for sold-out products
[ ] 12.00        Check cost per purchase; cut budget if it spikes
[ ] 15.00        All orders packed before courier pick-up
[ ] 20.00        Broadcast 4 to the "11.11 YES" list

D+1 to D+3
[ ] Ship everything, send tracking numbers via WhatsApp
[ ] Ask for reviews once parcels have arrived
[ ] Record: revenue, units, ad spend, chat count, canceled orders
[ ] Label these buyers "11.11 Buyer" ahead of 12.12

That last line, the “11.11 Buyer” label, is the one most often skipped, and it’s your warmest list for 12.12. How to keep it tidy is covered in our guide to WhatsApp Business as a CRM.

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Worked Example: A Cafe with a Small Online Side

The business is fictional and the figures are an illustrative plan for this season, built on a pattern we see often. Kopi Teras Serpong runs one cafe and sells 1-liter bottles of cold brew (Rp 120,000) and 250-gram bags of beans (Rp 95,000) through Shopee and WhatsApp. Online sales are around Rp 15 million a month.

Offer. A “Month’s Supply” bundle: 2 bottles of cold brew plus one 250 g bag of beans. Normal price Rp 335,000, sale price Rp 299,000 (roughly 11% off). About 70% of orders come through Shopee, where margin is around Rp 80,000 per bundle, assuming roughly 13% in total marketplace deductions (admin plus campaign-program fees; these vary by shop type, so use your own rate). The rest come through WhatsApp at about Rp 120,000 after cost of goods and packaging. The ceiling written down in week 1: no more than Rp 50,000 off per bundle.

Target. 120 bundles on 11.11, or about Rp 35.9 million in revenue.

Stock, 10.10, and ads. Green beans and bottles get ordered in week 1 (about 2 weeks’ lead time), cold brew is made at D-2 and D-1, and a separate Shopee pre-order listing goes live at D-8 for overflow, shipping 17 November. The 10.10 version is the same bundle with a free cookie. Say it sells around 30 bundles and shows that two people can only pack about 12 an hour: the plan is then to hire one day worker for 11.11 and ask the courier for a second pick-up. The 10.10 campaign is budgeted at Rp 75,000 a day for 4 days (about Rp 300,000), which the margin on those 30 or so bundles would cover. For 11.11, a conversion ad set runs at Rp 100,000 a day for 3 weeks (about Rp 2.1 million). The 11.11 ad set starts at Rp 300,000 a day at D-5 and rises about 25% a day to roughly Rp 900,000 on sale day, about Rp 3.4 million in total. Total 11.11 ad spend: around Rp 5.5 million.

Rough math. If they hit 120 bundles (84 via Shopee, 36 via WhatsApp), gross margin is about Rp 11 million. Take off Rp 5.5 million in ads and Rp 600,000 for the extra worker, and about Rp 4.9 million is left. At only 70 bundles (49 Shopee, 21 WhatsApp), that drops to about Rp 340,000, effectively break-even. If the 10.10 data says 120 bundles isn’t realistic, cut the D-5 to sale-day ad budget first and leave the price alone. Since even the 70-bundle case breaks even, the plan goes ahead. If the YES replies at D-3 point lower than that, the owner halves the D-1 and sale-day budget.

Total owner time from 1 October to 14 November: about 21 hours, plus sale day. Six Friday morning meetings cover about 9 of those hours (the decision tasks in each table are done inside the meeting); the rest fits around the cafe’s opening hours.

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When This Checklist Doesn’t Fit

• Service businesses with fixed capacity (clinics, salons): the six workstreams stay, but swap four rows like this.

Workstream	Replace with	When
Stock	Booking slots: block the 11.11 slots in your booking app and keep them away from regular bookings	Week 3
Offer	A prepaid voucher valid until 31 December, with a daily redemption cap so the first week doesn’t get swamped	Week 1
Admin	Staff roster and a no-show rule (for example, the voucher lapses after two unannounced no-shows)	Week 4
WhatsApp	A /booking quick reply confirming date, time, and therapist name	Week 4

• No customer list yet: focus on ads and the marketplace, and use 11.11 to start building a list.
• Product margin under 20%: skip the discount and offer a freebie or limited free shipping instead.

A legal note: only broadcast to customers who gave you their number and haven’t asked you to stop. Indonesia’s Personal Data Protection Law (UU No. 27 of 2022) sets out the legal bases for processing personal data, consent included.⁴

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If You’d Rather Not Juggle All of This Yourself

You can run all of this yourself. Where we usually help is the part that breaks most easily: a promo page that loads fast on a phone, UTM and GA4 tracking, and the ad-to-WhatsApp flow. In one session we can review your channels for 11.11 and hand you a priority list that fits your weekly slot. Book a free strategy session →

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References

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Footnotes

1. Meta Business Help Center. About the learning phase. facebook.com/business/help/112167992830700 Official explanation of the ad set learning phase and the roughly 50 optimization events per week it needs. ↩

2. Meta Business Help Center. About Meta’s ad review process. facebook.com/business/help/204798856225114 How ad review works on Facebook and Instagram, and how long it usually takes. ↩

3. Google Ads Help. About the ad review process. support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/1722120 How long Google ad review takes and what happens during it. ↩

4. Republic of Indonesia. Law No. 27 of 2022 on Personal Data Protection (UU PDP). peraturan.bpk.go.id/Details/229798/uu-no-27-tahun-2022 Legal basis for processing personal data, including data subject consent. ↩