Cyber Monday product videos in bulk: a Sume Format queue

To make a product video for every item in a catalog before Cyber Monday, send one Format through the bulk-run endpoint: POST /v1/formats/{handle}/{slug}/bulk-runs. It takes 1 to 100 items per queue and a concurrency from 1 to 16. Adobe's forecast, reported 2026-09-29, puts Cyber Monday at $15.1 billion, up 6.2%.

The queue's limits

The bulk-runs docs set these rules, and one of them surprises people: there is no webhook for the queue, only per-item events.

A sensible rollout

Run three items at concurrency 1 first, and read their receipts. If the cost and the look are right, raise the concurrency. Set a spend cap on the items, so that one stubborn product cannot spend more than the rest. Work out the total from usage.debited_usd_micros on those first three, then multiply, and keep a margin.

When the queue ends, list each item's status. Items that failed can be queued again as a new, smaller queue. Use a fresh Idempotency-Key for the requeue, since the old key with the same body would only replay the failed result.

Timing

Leave a few days between the first batch and the day. Generation can fail, and a review pass takes longer than the run. For the highest-stakes products, plan a human check of every file before it goes live, because the API runs unattended.

Items need clean inputs

A queue is only as good as its rows. Make every item carry the same fields, with a clear image and a short product name, and reject rows with missing images before you submit. One bad row can fail and still be counted inside a completed queue, so validate first and save yourself a requeue.

Keep a record

A bulk run produces a lot of files, and you will want to trace each one. Keep a short log beside the files: the Format slug, the exact instruction, the Idempotency-Key and the final cost from the receipt. When something works, you can repeat it on demand, and when something fails, you can see what changed between the two runs.