What is an announcement bar on a website?

An announcement bar is a slim strip across the very top of a store, above the header, carrying one short message — a promotion, a delivery deadline, a holiday closure. It is the highest-visibility spot on the page because every visitor sees it before they scroll, and it takes seconds to change.

What should I put in my store's announcement bar?

Something time-sensitive that a customer would otherwise have to ask you: a running promotion and when it ends, your free delivery threshold, changed opening hours or a holiday closure, the cut-off time for same-day delivery, or a new arrival. Avoid permanent slogans — a bar that says 'Quality you can trust' is ignored within a week.

How many announcements should I show at once?

Two or three. A single message is read by nearly everyone; a bar rotating through eight is finished by almost nobody, because a visitor would have to stare at the top of the page for 40 seconds. YellowPOS allows up to 10 messages, but restraint gets more of them read.

Should my announcement bar link somewhere?

If it advertises anything a customer can act on, yes. 'Free delivery over $50' that a customer can tap to reach the shop converts better than the same words as plain text. Purely informational announcements, like holiday hours, are fine without a link.

Does an announcement bar hurt my mobile layout?

Not if it keeps a fixed height and one line of text. Problems come from long messages that wrap to two or three lines on a phone and push the page down. Keep each message to roughly 40 to 60 characters and it stays a single tidy line on every screen.

What to Put in Your Store's Announcement Bar (With Examples)

Put something time-sensitive in it — a running promotion, your free delivery threshold, a holiday closure, a delivery cut-off. The bar above your header is the most-read line on your whole store, and it's wasted on a slogan.

Every visitor to your store sees the strip above the header before they scroll, before they search, before they look at a single product. It's the one line you can be sure gets read. Most shops either leave it empty or fill it with something that stopped being news months ago — and both are a waste of the best space on the page.

What actually belongs in it

The test is simple: would a customer otherwise have to message you to find this out? If yes, it belongs in the bar. If it's something they could guess, or something that will still be true next year, it doesn't.

The things that pass the test, roughly in order of value:

A running promotion and when it ends. The end date is what makes people act.
Your free delivery threshold. It quietly raises order values — customers add an item to reach it.
A closure or changed hours. Eid, Christmas, a public holiday, a day you're shut for stock-taking.
Delivery timing. "Order before 3pm for same-day delivery" answers the question people ask most.
A new arrival or restock. Especially for something customers were waiting on.
An honest warning. "Deliveries delayed 1–2 days this week" saves you far more angry calls than it costs in orders.

What to leave out

Slogans. "Quality you can trust", "Serving Lebanon since 2009", "Welcome to our store" — all invisible after a week, and they train customers to skip the bar entirely, so that when you do have something urgent to say, nobody reads it. The same goes for anything that never changes: your phone number belongs in the header, your policies belong on their own pages.

Don't stack discounts either. A bar advertising three different offers at once reads as desperation, and customers wonder which one actually applies to them.

How many messages, and how long?

Two or three. One message is read by nearly every visitor. A bar cycling through eight is finished by almost nobody — at five seconds each, a customer would have to watch the top of the page for 40 seconds to see them all. Rotation is useful because it lets you run a promotion and a delivery notice at the same time, not because more is better.

Keep each one to roughly 40 to 60 characters. Phones are narrow and the bar is a single line; a longer sentence gets cut off mid-word, which looks worse than saying less. Write it, then read it on your own phone before you leave it up.

Examples you can copy

Retail shop: "Free delivery on orders over $50" · "New autumn collection now in stock" · "Closed Monday for a public holiday"

Restaurant or café: "Order before 3pm for same-day delivery" · "Kitchen closes at 10pm this week" · "New breakfast menu — served until 11am"

Grocery or mini-market: "Delivery within Beirut in under an hour" · "Fresh produce delivered every morning" · "15% off all dairy until Sunday"

Salon or service business: "Now taking bookings for next month" · "Walk-ins welcome before 12pm" · "Closed for Eid — back Thursday"

Notice what these have in common: a number, a date, or a deadline in almost every one. That's the difference between a message and a slogan.

Always link it if there's something to click

An announcement about a sale should take the customer to the sale. "20% off all coffee this week" that opens the coffee category converts far better than the same words as plain text, because you've removed the step where the customer has to go and find it themselves. Only leave a message unlinked when there's genuinely nowhere to send anyone — holiday hours, a delivery delay.

Setting one up in YellowPOS

Open Settings → Features → Announcement bar (or Website Design → Header, which edits the same thing) and switch it on. Type your message, click Add message for each extra one — up to 10 — and pick a destination for each from the link dropdown, which lists your storefront pages, categories, tags, and products. Drag the rows to reorder them, optionally set a background and text colour, and save. With more than one message the bar fades between them every five seconds and customers can swipe through it on a phone. The full walkthrough is in the announcement bar guide.

Then keep it current

This is the part everyone skips. An announcement bar advertising a promotion that ended in March is worse than an empty one — it tells customers your store isn't being watched. Editing it takes about fifteen seconds, so tie it to something you already do: when a promotion ends, when your hours change, when you close for a holiday. If you can't think of anything time-sensitive to say this week, turn the bar off and turn it back on when you can. For more ways to use your storefront, see running offers and promotions.