Globally, ecommerce sales so far in the holiday season have exceeded $1 trillion, according to data from Salesforce.
It found that from Nov. 1 through Dec. 15, online shoppers have spent a combined $1.033 trillion. That’s 7% growth compared to the same time frame in 2024, Salesforce data shows.
In the U.S., ecommerce sales over that time period reached $238 billion, marking 4% growth, Salesforce reported. Meanwhile, Adobe Analytics data from a similar period — Nov. 1 through Dec. 12 — shows U.S. consumers have spent $187.3 billion in online sales. That would be 6.1% growth compared to the same period in 2024, according to Adobe.
“This season isn’t just about higher spending — it’s about smarter shopping,” said Caila Schwartz, director of consumer insights at Salesforce, in a released statement. “We are seeing a significant surge in consumers doing their own digital diligence, with time spent on sites jumping 35% in the U.S. as consumers move away from impulse buys toward informed purchasing decisions.”
Salesforce draws on global shopping data from billions of consumers through its Agentforce Commerce, Marketing and Service platform. In North America, 78 of the Top 2000 online retailers use Salesforce as their ecommerce platform. The Top 2000 Database ranks North America’s largest online retailers by their annual ecommerce sales.
Adobe Analytics said it bases its data on more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites, 100 million SKUs and 18 product categories. 215 online retailers in the Top 2000 use Adobe Analytics for their web analytics, and 106 use it for site design and development.
Peak holiday shopping periods in 2025 so far
Although the last peak shopping day for in-store retail — Super Saturday — has not yet arrived, the busiest individual days for ecommerce sales in the holiday season have already passed. During the Cyber 5, U.S. consumers spent more than $44 billion online, according to previous Digital Commerce 360 reporting.
The Cyber 5 refers to the five-day period of Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday. Super Saturday refers to the Saturday right before Christmas.
Between Nov. 1 and Dec. 1, U.S. consumers had spent $137.4 billion in online sales, according to Adobe. That’s 7.1% year-over-year growth. Of that, $73.7 billion came from mobile devices, marking 7.2% growth.
Adobe projects that for the full holiday shopping season — which it defines as Nov. 1 through Dec. 31 — U.S. consumers will spend $253.4 billion in ecommerce sales. That would be a 5.3% year-over-year increase.
Holiday ecommerce sales trends through mid-December
Salesforce found that discounts have shrunk to an average of 20% globally and 22% in the U.S. between Dec. 1 and 15. However, online sales still grew 7% and 4% year over year, respectively, in those segments. It also noted that online retail traffic volume increased 16% year over year from Dec. 1 through 15.
That was part of a larger trend of increased online shopping traffic, according to Salesforce data. It said between Nov. 1 and Dec. 15, the time consumers spent on ecommerce websites “grew significantly” compared to the same period in 2024.
Online traffic volumes in that month-and-a-half period increased 12% year over year globally and 10% in the U.S., Salesforce said. Meanwhile, the time consumers spent on ecommerce sites increased 35% year over year in the U.S. and 28% globally.
“This means that while shoppers are spending more overall, they are being much more discerning about how their money is spent and seeking out more information from brands before finalizing a purchase,” according to Salesforce.
Adobe data indicates home purchases drove much of the U.S. ecommerce sales growth between Nov. 1 and Dec. 12. Compared to average spending levels in October 2025:
- Sales of refrigerators and freezers increased 400%
- Home security products (380%)
- Washers and dryers (380%)
- Holiday decor (350%)
By growth rate, other top sellers included:
- Video games sales (increased 360%)
- Puzzles and boxed games (330%)
- Smartwatches (330%)
- Headphones and speakers (320%)
While holiday-period ecommerce sales grew, so did consumers’ use of buy now, pay later (BNPL), according to Adobe. It found that from Nov. 1 to Dec. 12, consumers used BNPL for $13.9 billion in online purchases. That’s 6% more than the same period in 2024.
The vast majority of that came from November and Cyber Monday. Between Nov. 1 and Dec. 1, consumers had spent $10.1 billion online using BNPL.
How AI agents have played into holiday ecommerce sales
Artificial intelligence tools overall and AI agents in specific have influenced about a fifth of ecommerce sales between Nov. 1 and Dec. 15, according to Salesforce.
It found that agents and generative AI tools have influenced 22% of global ecommerce sales and 18% of U.S. online sales.
“These AI agent search channels directed the most traffic to retail websites in the first two weeks of the holiday season, as shoppers started their research before Cyber Week began,” according to Salesforce.
Salesforce defines Cyber Week as the Tuesday preceding Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday. It defines the holiday season as Nov. 1 through Dec. 31.
Retailers with their own AI-powered shopping agents on their websites outperformed their counterparts in that time frame, Salesforce said. Those retailers with AI shopping agents grew ecommerce sales at about double the rate of those without. They increased sales at a rate of 7.2% year over year between Nov. 1 and Dec. 15, according to Salesforce, as retailers without comparable AI technology grew sales 3.6%.
That difference in growth among retailers using AI agents “proves that the brands winning this year are those providing conversational, agentic experiences,” said Schwartz.
Salesforce data indicates 47% of holiday-season agentic AI-powered customer service conversations happened between Dec. 1 and 15. That indicates an increase in adoption and usage as the holiday progresses, according to Salesforce. It also shows that “shoppers get more frantic about their holiday gift buying,” it assessed.
Returns so far during the holiday season
As consumers have spent more, they have also returned less, according to Adobe Analytics. Between Nov. 1 and Dec. 12, returns decreased 2.5% compared to the same time period in 2024, Adobe found. In the seven days following the Cyber 5, returns decreased 0.1%.
Salesforce found that overall, consumers have returned 13% of the online purchases they made between Nov. 1 and Dec. 15 this year. Its data shows that, similar to last year, return rates peaked in the first two weeks of December “as shoppers re-evaluated their Cyber Week purchases and sought to get credit card statements cleared before the end of the month.”
Adobe anticipates returns to “ramp up” following Christmas Day. It projects a 25% to 35% increase between Dec. 26 and Dec. 31 compared to Nov. 1 through Dec. 12. In the 2024 holiday season, it found that one out of every eight returns (on average) took place between Dec. 26 and Dec. 31. It said it expects that trend to continue this year.
And while U.S. consumers have increasingly made their holiday-season purchases through mobile devices, they’re largely using their desktop devices to facilitate returns. From Nov. 1 through Dec. 12, 39% of returns happened on mobile devices (versus desktop), whereas 53.4% of ecommerce spending came from mobile, according to Adobe data.
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