This is the last Week Ahead of 2025, and it’s always the hardest one to write. The week between Christmas and New Year’s is typically the deadest of dead zones for news, though you can usually count on someone trying to bury a scandal or two on Christmas Eve.
There are a couple shoes that could still drop: The Supreme Court has a few more days to ruin President Donald Trump’s Christmas by releasing its tariff ruling. And the industry awaits confirmation of the identity of Versace’s next creative director, widely reported to be Alaïa designer Pieter Mulier.
We’ll have plenty to say on both of these events if and when they happen. For now, let’s focus on something that will definitely be on the industry’s mind this week: how to squeeze the last sales out of what’s proving to be a surprisingly strong holiday season.
Holidays by the Numbers
Spending remains strong: Adobe, which tracks online spending, found consumers spent $187.3 billion between Nov. 1 and Dec. 12, a 6.1 percent increase over last year. The data confirms that big Black Friday sales didn’t reflect shoppers moving up spending to take advantage of discounts; Americans may be pessimistic about the economy, but they’re less worried about their personal finances.
That’s not universally true, however. US retail sales data for October released last week found lower-income shoppers pulling back as prices rose. It remains to be seen if that continued throughout the holiday season, and whether the drop is enough to cancel out increased spending by wealthier shoppers.
Prices are stabilising: Retailers can sense that consumers won’t tolerate too many more price hikes. Last week, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that inflation rose by an unexpectedly mild 2.7 percent in November. Apparel prices edged up just 0.2 percent from a year earlier, one of the lowest readings of any major category.
AI is everywhere: Will this be one of the last holiday seasons where humans do most of their own gift shopping? AI e-commerce agents burst on the scene only a few months ago, and likely didn’t complete a significant share of holiday sales. They are playing other roles, including recommending products and handling customer service requests. More retailers are quietly integrating AI-generated imagery into their marketing machines, with Zara following rival H&M in creating digital twins of real models.
Take-up varies. While consumers have rapidly warmed to the idea of using AI to learn more about products, other services haven’t connected with the masses yet. Virtual try-on is one example: AI has made it possible to create surprisingly lifelike representations of how clothes might look on your body. Yet one survey this autumn found just 1.4 percent of consumers regularly used the technology.
A wave of returns: If the holidays are retailers’ favourite time of year, they dread the period immediately after when everyone returns all those well-intentioned but misguided gifts. So far this season returns are down 2.5 percent from last year, according to Adobe, but that’s small comfort when their survey shows one in eight holiday returns typically takes place in the days between Christmas and New Year’s.
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