It's 2:47 AM on a Tuesday in November. You're in your kitchen, eating shredded cheese directly from the bag, staring at your phone because someone in the company Slack just typed "quick question about tomorrow's launch" followed by the dots that indicate they're still typing. Those dots have been going for 90 seconds. You know whatever comes next is going to ruin your life.
This is Q4 in ecommerce.
If you've read Fourth Wing, you know Violet spends the entire book thinking she might die at dragon college. That's cute. Try being an ecommerce marketer in Q4 2025, where you've already burned through every promotional idea known to humanity (twice in 2025 alone), your customers are numb to discounts, your Shopify store is held together with duct tape and prayer, and instead of one hot morally gray love interest, you've got 50 stakeholders who all want different things and they want them yesterday.
Welcome to hell. Population: everyone who works in online retail from October through December.
The "We Need This Yesterday" Email Chain
It's October 15th. You get an email with subject line: "Quick Black Friday thought."
There are 47 people CC'd. You recognize maybe 12 of them. Who the hell is Tyler from Revenue Operations and why is he about to have opinions about your promotional strategy?
The email says "just wondering if we've thought about doing something fun and different this year?" which is corporate speak for "I have no ideas but I'm going to make this your problem."
By 3 PM, the thread has 89 replies. Someone has suggested "gamification." Someone else wants to "leverage AI." Karen from Finance has asked if you've calculated the ROI on a campaign that doesn't exist yet and also could you fill out this form for budget justification that's due in 20 minutes?
Tyler from Revenue Operations suggests "What if we just do what Amazon does?"
Tyler. Tyler. TYLER. Amazon has 1.5 million employees and a logistics network that could deliver a package to the International Space Station if they wanted to. We have Derek in the warehouse and a prayer.
The worst part? This email chain will never die. It will continue through Thanksgiving. Someone will reply all on December 23rd asking "did we ever resolve this?" No, Brad. We didn't. We survived in spite of it.
When Inventory Becomes a Horror Movie
You planned everything perfectly. Your hero product? Stocked. You've got 5,000 units. You've got backup at a second warehouse. You're a responsible adult who actually listened in those supply chain meetings.
November 22nd, 11:30 AM. You're eating a sad desk salad. Your warehouse manager posts in Slack: "hey quick q"
No question that starts with "hey quick q" has ever been quick.
"so like 60% of the hero product is at the wrong facility and also some of the boxes got mislabeled as returns? but like we can probably figure it out lol"
You are not lol-ing. You will never lol again.
Meanwhile, that random product you've been trying to discontinue for 6 months? The ceramic mushroom lamp that you're pretty sure was a purchasing mistake? A TikToker with 4 million followers just posted a video called "5 random Amazon finds that changed my life" and your mushroom lamp is number 2.
You have 11 units left.
The comments are 90% "WHERE DO I BUY THIS OMG"
You're getting Slack messages. "Are we seeing a spike in the mushroom lamp?" Yes, Brad. We're seeing a spike. We're seeing Everest. We're seeing heaven. We're about to see hell when we run out in 45 minutes.
You try to order more. The supplier is in Malaysia. The next container ship doesn't leave for 3 weeks. You've never been religious but you're praying now.
Your CEO Discovers Innovation (In The Worst Possible Moment)
November 20th. Your campaigns are built. Emails scheduled. Ads running. You can see the finish line.
Your CEO returns from a conference in Miami where they paid $3,000 to hear a guy in a black turtleneck talk about "the future of commerce."
Monday morning all hands meeting: "Team, I've been thinking."
No. No no no no no.
"What if we made the Black Friday experience more... immersive? I'm thinking Web3. I'm thinking metaverse. I'm thinking customers can visit a virtual store and their avatars can try on digital twins of our products before purchasing the physical items."
Sir, we sell vitamins.
"How hard could it be to set up?"
This question. This goddamn question. This is the question that has destroyed more marketing teams than any algorithm update or iOS change ever could.
Your CTO, bless him, tries to explain that this would require months of development. The CEO's eyes glaze over at the word "API."
"But I met a startup founder who said they built something like this in a weekend."
That startup has 47 million in VC funding, 6 employees who haven't slept since 2021, and according to LinkedIn they're "stealth mode" which means they don't actually have a product yet.
We have Janet who's really good at Excel, Derek in the warehouse, and you, who's about to fake your own death and start a new life selling empanadas from a food truck in Portland.
The Creative Files Situation
October 1st: You send a creative brief. You need hero images, product shots, email headers, and social assets. You need them by October 15th to stay on schedule.
October 15th: Nothing.
October 28th: You get a Slack message. "Hey did you get those files I sent?"
You did not get files. There are no files. You check your email. Your Slack. Your Google Drive. There is nothing.
"Oh weird, let me resend"
You receive:
One image. It's 450x280 pixels. You need 1200x800.
A video file named "BF_final_FINAL_V3_actualfinal_newdraft_USETHISONE_v2_final.mov"
The video is 45GB. Your laptop fans start screaming. The video won't open. When it finally opens after 30 minutes, it features products you discontinued in 2023.
You message the designer. "Hey, these are last year's products."
"Oh yeah, I used the old folder as a template, you can just swap them out in post right?"
You cannot just swap them out in post. You don't even know what "in post" means. You're a marketer, not a film editor. You didn't go to USC for this.
November 23rd, 11 PM. You teach yourself Photoshop via YouTube tutorials. You're crying. The tutorial guy has an accent you can't quite place and he keeps saying "very nice" but nothing about this is very nice.
You finish at 3 AM. The image is pixelated and one product looks slightly haunted but it's going out because you simply cannot anymore.
Analytics: A Choose Your Own Reality Adventure
You've set up tracking perfectly. Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, TikTok Pixel, your ESP, Shopify analytics, that one tool the CEO insisted you buy that cost $900/month and you still don't know what it does.
The data comes in:
Google Analytics says 10,000 visitors. Shopify says 15,000 sessions. Your email platform says 8,000 clicks. Facebook claims 22,000 "engaged users." That expensive tool returns Error 404.
Your boss asks why these numbers don't match.
You explain cookies, cross-device tracking, attribution windows, the iOS 14 update that destroyed everything, how Facebook counts an "engaged user" as anyone who looked at an ad while scrolling past it at highway speeds.
Their eyes glaze over. "But which number is real?"
All of them. None of them. Reality is a construct. You've stopped believing in objective truth. You're one bad meeting away from becoming a flat earther just because at least they have conviction.
Then someone forwards you an article titled "Cookies Are Dead: Is Your Business Ready?"
Ready? READY? You can barely handle cookies being alive. You've got 47 tracking pixels fighting for dominance like it's the Hunger Games. Your attribution model is held together with hope and the assumption that people who click your ads probably bought something eventually, maybe, you think?
"So what's our ROAS?"
You look at 6 different platforms showing 6 different numbers. You think about the time you tried to sync them all and created a feedback loop that double counted everything for 3 weeks.
You pick the number that makes you look best and call it "directionally accurate."
Customer Service Messages That Test Your Faith In Humanity
You prepared FAQs. You trained the chatbot. You briefed the team. You're ready for anything.
You were not ready for anything.
11:47 PM, Thanksgiving night: "My order hasn't arrived yet?????" (Order placed 11 minutes ago)
Black Friday, 6 AM: "I bought this jacket from you guys in 2019 and the zipper broke. I want a refund." Ma'am, that's not how time works. That's not how any of this works.
Cyber Monday: "Your website is broken!!!" You check. Website is fine. You ask for details. "THE PRICES ARE TOO HIGH" That's... that's not broken. That's capitalism.
The recurring classic: "Why is shipping $8? Amazon Prime is free." Sir, this is a small business. We're not Amazon. Amazon is a trillion dollar company. We're 8 people in an office that smells like old coffee and broken dreams. Our CEO's dog is here right now. It's barking at the printer. We're doing our best.
The review that appears on Cyber Monday: ⭐ "Item never arrived. Terrible company. Will never order again."
You check the order. Placed Saturday night at 11:47 PM. Today is Monday. It's been 36 hours. They chose ground shipping. They live in Maine. The warehouse is in Nevada.
You have never wanted to reply "ma'am this is a Wendy's" to a review more in your entire life.
The one that breaks you: "Hi! I love you guys! Quick question - I have an order from 2020 but I lost the confirmation email and I don't remember what email I used and I moved so the address is different and I think the credit card expired but can you help me find it? I think the order number started with a 4? Or maybe a 7?"
You stare at this message for 10 minutes. You consider a career change. You google "how to become a lighthouse keeper." It requires no customer service skills. Just you, the ocean, and peace.
The Typo That Will Haunt You Forever
You've proofread your Black Friday email 23 times. You've had four people review it. You've used Grammarly, Hemingway Editor, and two AI tools that promised "perfect copy." You've printed it out and read it backwards like you're performing an exorcism.
You hit send to 340,000 subscribers at 6:00 AM sharp.
At 6:01 AM, your phone buzzes. It's your boss.
"Did you mean to spell it 'BLAK FRIDAY SAEL'?"
You open the email on your phone.
Oh no.
Oh no no no.
The subject line reads "BLAK FRIDAY SAEL - 40% OF"
40% OF. Not OFF. OF.
The main CTA button says "SHOP N0W" with a zero instead of an O because somewhere in the design process someone changed the font and that font apparently doesn't distinguish between O and 0.
You're getting Slack messages: "lol did you see the typo" "is 'sael' like a Gen Z thing?" "are we being ironic?"
Your boss: "Is this intentional? Like a marketing thing? Very demure, very sael?"
No, Brad. Nothing about this is demure. This is chaos. This is what happens when you're testing emails at 2 AM and your brain is 60% coffee, 40% panic.
You send a follow up email: "We can spell, we promise (BLACK FRIDAY SALE - Take 2!)" with an extra 10% discount code OOPS10.
That email performs 34% better than your original planned email.
Your boss messages you: "Great guerrilla marketing strategy!"
You don't correct them. You just close your laptop and scream into a pillow.
The Site Crash (It's Not If, It's When)
Your dev team has promised you the site can handle 50x normal traffic. They've load tested. They've optimized. They've sacrificed a keyboard to the tech gods. You're invincible.
November 25th, 12:01 AM. Black Friday officially begins.
You refresh the homepage. It loads in 0.4 seconds. Beautiful. You shed a single tear of joy.
12:03 AM. Someone in Slack: "is the site slow for anyone else?"
12:04 AM. Your phone starts buzzing. Emails. Texts. A carrier pigeon somehow.
The site is down.
Not slow. DOWN. Error 503. "Service Temporarily Unavailable."
You refresh. Nothing. The site has decided to simply stop existing.
You call your developer. Straight to voicemail. You text. No response. You check their Slack status: "Away." Their LinkedIn says they're on vacation in Bali.
You're in the company Slack trying not to type in all caps. Your Shopify store is throttling requests because apparently everyone else also decided midnight was a great time to launch their sale. Who could have possibly predicted this? (Everyone. Everyone predicted this.)
Your hosting company's wait time is 4 hours. The hold music is jazz. Smooth, mocking jazz.
By 2 AM, the site is back up. You've lost two hours of sales. Your CEO sends a message: "What happened?"
You type out a 6 paragraph explanation of server load, traffic spikes, and CDN propagation.
You delete it.
You write: "Too many people tried to buy things at once."
CEO: "Why didn't we prepare for that?"
You close Slack. You close your laptop. You consider a new life as someone who makes artisanal soap.
When Your CEO Discovers TikTok Trends
Your CEO is 53 years old. They have never been on TikTok. They do not know what "demure" means in the internet sense. They think "cortado" is a type of fish.
But they DO attend conferences, and at conferences, consultants tell them about "cultural moments" and "zeitgeist marketing."
Monday morning meeting:
"Team, I've been thinking. What if we made our Black Friday campaign more... culturally relevant?"
You feel your soul trying to escape your body.
"I heard young people are really into this... Fourth Wing book? Dragons are hot right now. Can we do something with dragons?"
Linda, we sell cookware.
"Also, I was reading that New Balance sneakers are cool now? The dad shoes are back? What if we made our brand about... comfort and authenticity?"
Sir, we've been selling the same products since 2019. We ARE comfort and authenticity. We're TOO much comfort and authenticity. Our Instagram engagement is in the low double digits.
"Perfect! Let's lean into it. Make it demure."
The word "demure" comes out of their mouth like they're trying to pronounce a spell they don't understand. They're so proud of themselves.
"Very mindful, very cutesy, very Black Friday," they say, completely butchering the reference.
Someone asks what being "demure" has to do with cookware.
"It's what the kids say now. It means... mindful? Peaceful? Premium?"
It means none of those things in this context but you're too tired to explain internet linguistics to a man who still sends emails that start with "As per my last correspondence."
The meeting ends with an action item: "Integrate cultural trends into Q4 campaign."
You open TikTok. You watch Fourth Wing fan edits. You see the demure videos. You look up why Gen Z thinks New Balance 574s are fashion now. You understand none of this can be corporate-ified without looking like Steve Buscemi holding a skateboard saying "how do you do, fellow kids."
You make a mood board anyway because that's what they're paying you for apparently.
Your 23-year-old intern looks at it and says "this is giving millennial cringe."
You're 40. You've never been more tired. And, you don’t identify as a millennial.
The Post-Q4 Reality Check
December 28th. You made it. You're alive. Barely, but alive.
You open your laptop to review the results and maybe, just maybe, feel good about what you accomplished.
Returns are flooding in. Someone found a broken link from a November 3rd campaign and wants to know why you haven't fixed it yet (it's been broken for 8 weeks, Gary, we had other priorities).
Your January budget just got slashed by 40% because "Q4 was so successful we don't need as much marketing spend!"
You have 847 unread emails.
Your inbox contains 23 "quick questions," 67 emails that start with "circling back," one email with just a question mark as the subject line, and an invoice from that expensive analytics tool you forgot to cancel.
Someone asks if you've started planning for Valentine's Day.
Your eye twitches. You didn't know eyes could do that until Q4.
The CEO sends an all-company email: "Amazing work team! Let's beat these numbers next year!"
You look at your coworker. Your coworker looks at you. Neither of you speaks. You both know you'll be back here in 10 months, doing this again, pretending you don't remember the trauma.
Someone suggests a "Q4 retrospective meeting."
You decline the meeting invite.
You will not be discussing Q4. You will be repressing Q4. This is the way.
The Truth About Q4
Look, Q4 in ecommerce is insane. You will absolutely question why you chose this career. You'll have stress dreams about email subject lines. You'll check Slack at 11 PM "just in case." You'll become fluent in corporate euphemisms like "let's circle back" (translation: no) and "quick question" (translation: this will consume your entire afternoon).
You'll also become weirdly good at functioning on 4 hours of sleep and gas station coffee. You'll learn that you can, in fact, build an entire campaign in 6 hours that performs better than the one you spent 3 weeks on. Your breaking point is much further than you thought. These are not good discoveries to make about yourself, but here we are.
And when it's over, when you finally close your laptop on December 28th, you'll swear you're never doing this again.
Then September rolls around and you open a fresh spreadsheet labeled "Q4_2026_Planning.xlsx" because apparently you have Stockholm Syndrome and the brain damage is permanent.
To everyone in the trenches right now: I see you eating lunch at your desk at 3 PM because you forgot lunch existed. I see you refreshing your analytics dashboard like it's going to tell you something different this time. I see you typing "per my last email" and deleting it because you're a professional, damn it.
May your site stay up. May your typos be minimal. May your warehouse actually know where your inventory is. And may you actually take that PTO in January before someone schedules you for "Q1 Planning Kickoff."
Now if you'll excuse me, someone just Slacked "quick question about tomorrow" and I need to go scream into the void.
Drop your Q4 war stories in the comments. Misery loves company, and also helps our engagement metrics, so really you'd be doing me a favor.