Ramadan campaign planning for online stores: what to prepare six weeks out

The campaign goes live in the first week of Ramadan and orders come in. By day ten the best-seller is gone, and the supplier's next delivery won't land before Eid. Then the last ten nights arrive: the courier's slots are full, clicks cost more than a fortnight ago, and the ad still shows a product the warehouse no longer has.

Where did it go wrong? Six weeks earlier, on the day nobody decided how many units to order. I plan a Ramadan campaign backwards: stock has the longest lead time, so it's settled first; the ad has the shortest, so it goes last.

Ramadan 1448 is expected to begin around Monday 8 February 2027 by Saudi Arabia's official Umm al-Qura calendar, with Eid al-Fitr expected around Tuesday 9 March; the moon sighting decides. So week one of your plan starts Monday 28 December 2026, just over two weeks after 12.12.

When should you start preparing for Ramadan?

At least six weeks before, but your supplier's lead time sets the clock. Ask one question: if I order today, when is the stock on my shelf, ready to sell?

If the answer is three weeks, six covers deciding quantities, waiting for the goods and building the offer. From a supplier abroad by sea, six weeks is already late.

What do you do in weeks six and five?

Open last Ramadan's sales sheet and decide quantities. In Saudi Arabia, Ramadan 2026 ran from 18 February to 19 March 2026, with Eid on Friday 20 March, so export the orders for that period, plus the week after it, from your store dashboard on Salla or Zid.

I read the sales sheet before the ad report: the report shows what the platform credited to itself, the sheet what sold and when it ran out. I look for three answers:

1. What sold in the first ten days, and what sold in the last ten and the run-up to Eid? It's usually not the same list.
2. Which product ran out, and on which day? A stockout date means the sheet understates demand: it shows what you had, not what people wanted.
3. How much of each product was left after Eid? That's what you over-ordered, and often what became slow stock by spring.

Then write each best-seller's supplier lead time next to it, from order day to shelf. Quantity and order date come out of that together.

This is close to my work at Argan Package in Saudi Arabia, sourcing from suppliers in Morocco. I analyzed sales figures, the flow of quantities, stock and sell-through, linked them to the seasons, and recommended quantities and order timing; the purchasing decision stayed with management. The lesson: the quantity you order in December caps what you sell in Ramadan, however much you spend on ads.

What do you prepare in weeks four and three?

The offer. I don't open Ramadan with a sitewide discount. It gives a product that sells itself the same cut as one gathering dust, and lands a few weeks after White Friday (the Gulf's name for Black Friday) and 12.12, so your customer reads it as a fourth sale season and learns to wait.

Instead, build bundles and gift sets around what people buy that month: a home-and-hosting bundle for the start, when households prepare for iftar guests, and a gift set for before Eid, each named for a use the customer understands. A bundle raises order value instead of cutting price, and puts an average seller next to a strong one. The product bundles guide covers building one and checking its margin.

If you sell in Saudi Arabia and your offer includes an advertised discount, get the Ministry of Commerce discount license for each offer period before you announce it. That includes a bundle advertised as a saving against the separate prices. I covered this in the year-end sale seasons article. The percentage goes on the license before the ad, so settle it now, not the night before launch.

Before fixing any percentage or bundle price, check what an order leaves after shipping and ads in the campaign profit calculator. If nothing's left, the offer needs changing, not a bigger budget.

What do you prepare in the last two weeks before Ramadan?

Delivery, cash on delivery and customer service. This is where you lose orders you've already paid to win.

The last shipping date before Eid. Ask your courier now for the last pickup day that still gets an order to each city you sell to before Eid. Ask too which days they stop during Eid. Put the last pickup day on the product page and in the order confirmation. An Eid gift that arrives after Eid may be refused at the door.

Confirmation before dispatch. A refused cash-on-delivery parcel earns you nothing. Confirm every such order by WhatsApp before it leaves the warehouse, especially in the rushed final days. See how to reduce cash-on-delivery refusals.

Customer-service hours. Ramadan changes when people send questions. Set shifts around when last Ramadan's chats came in, and publish your reply hours. An unanswered question on one of the last ten nights is an order lost to another store.

What do you do during the month itself?

Treat it as two seasons. The first is the start, when people ready their homes for the month; the second is the last ten days and the run-up to Eid, when buying turns to gifts, clothes and Eid preparations. That's my reading, not a statistic; your sheet will confirm or contradict it.

So don't spread the budget evenly over 30 days. Put the larger share on the two peaks, with enough between them to keep campaigns alive. Ramadan browsing is said to shift late into the night; don't build on that until last Ramadan's hour-of-day report shows when the orders came, not the clicks.

If your campaigns use Target CPA or Target ROAS, or run as Performance Max, my rule for seasonality adjustments is one short window where you expect a clear jump in conversion rate, such as the days before Eid, never the whole month. Google calls them ideal for events of one to seven days and warns they may not work as well beyond 14.

The six-week plan

The dates assume Ramadan starts as expected on 8 February 2027; if it moves by a day, shift the last two rows with it. The last column matters most: read its number before deciding.

Week	Starts (2026/27)	The decision	The figure to read before deciding
−6	Mon 28 Dec 2026	Which products go into the season	Each product's Ramadan 2026 sales, first and last ten days separately
−5	Mon 4 Jan 2027	Order quantity and date with the supplier	Current stock, lead time to shelf, and last Ramadan's stockout day
−4	Mon 11 Jan	Offer shape: bundles, gift sets, and where any discount goes	Each bundle's margin after shipping and payment fees
−3	Mon 18 Jan	Discount license (Saudi Arabia), bundle pages, and the message to existing customers	What's left per order after ads (campaign profit calculator)
−2	Mon 25 Jan	Last shipping day before Eid per city; cash-on-delivery confirmation plan	Last Ramadan's refusal rate, and delivery time per city
−1	Mon 1 Feb	Customer-service hours, ad schedule, budget split across both peaks	The hours orders and chats arrived last Ramadan
Ramadan	Around 8 Feb (expected)	Which ads to raise or pause, every morning	Yesterday's sales and each product's stock
Last ten days	Around 28 Feb (expected)	A short seasonality adjustment if relevant; pause ads for sold-out items	The last shipping day that still arrives before Eid

What can you ignore?

Generic "best-selling Ramadan products" lists. Trust your own sheet; it comes from your customers.

The race to launch ads early. An ad live before quantities are confirmed brings orders you may not be able to deliver.

A store redesign before the season. A Ramadan banner on the home page is enough; rebuilding pages in January opens bugs you won't have time to fix.

And don't judge the campaign by its first week. Wait until after Eid, when the courier's cash collections are in and returns are counted.

What should you do this week?

Block one hour at the start of each week from 28 December to 1 February. Then export your Ramadan 2026 orders today and ask your supplier for their lead time. Those two numbers tell you whether six weeks is enough or you're already late.

If your sales, stock and shipping figures are scattered across the store dashboard, courier statements and supplier spreadsheets, that's where I start in e-commerce growth: the sheet first, then the ad.