Online sales during the 2025 holiday season will exceed 2024’s record-setting total by more than 5%, according to a new forecast from Adobe Analytics — and its projections show generative artificial intelligence (AI) will influence how consumers shop in the final two months of the year.
2025’s total online holiday spending is poised to exceed $250 billion in ecommerce sales from Nov. 1 through Dec. 31 for the first time, Adobe projects. Its analysts said the Cyber 5 — the period from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday — will account for 17.2% of total online holiday spending. Meanwhile, Cyber Monday itself will remain the largest online shopping day of both the season and the year, according to Adobe.
In addition, Adobe expects pre-holiday season discounts in October will entice shoppers to start their shopping early. Those sales events include fall iterations of Amazon’s Prime Day event, Walmart Deals, Target Circle Week and other comparable promotions.
Adobe Analytics says it bases its data on more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites, 100 million SKUs and 18 product categories. 200 online retailers in the Top 1000 use Adobe Analytics for their web analytics. 97 use it for site design and development. Top 1000 online retailers also use it for content delivery and management, as an ecommerce platform, a marketing platform, for personalization and more.
Amazon wedges Prime Day into online holiday sales
In addition to releasing predictions for the overall holiday season, Adobe projected Amazon’s fall Prime Day event, called Big Deal Days, will generate $9 billion in spending between Oct. 7 and Oct. 8. It referred to Amazon’s Prime Day event as “an industrywide moment for ecommerce” with deals happening broadly across U.S. retailers.
The fall iteration of Amazon’s Prime Day runs for two days, months after the summer event ran for four days — a first. The summer event ran July 8 through July 11. Adobe Analytics data indicates it led U.S. consumers to spend $24.1 billion online outside of Amazon in that time frame.
That was $300 million more than Adobe had projected going into the event, as well as the equivalent of combining Black Friday and Cyber Monday online sales in 2024 ($10.8 billion and $13.3 billion, respectively).
Adobe’s online holiday sales predictions for 2025
Adobe projects $253.4 billion in online holiday sales in 2025. That would be 5.3% year-over-year growth over an already record-setting 2024.
Of that, 56.1% of sales will come from mobile devices, based on Adobe data. That would represent $142.7 billion, which would be 8.5% year-over-year growth.
Altogether, Adobe has released five predictions for the holiday shopping season:
- 10 days will each generate $5 billion in online consumer spending.
- Buy now, pay later (BNPL) will factor into nearly 8% of all holiday online sales.
- Retailers will offer competitive discounts online comparable to 2024.
- Electronics, apparel and home goods will drive ecommerce sales growth.
- Generative AI and social media will play key roles in online shopping behaviors.
1. $5 billion a day — for 10 different days
About a fifth of all online holiday sales in 2025 will occur on 10 days, according to Adobe’s projections. It expects Cyber Monday alone to generate $14.2 billion, which would be a 6.3% year-over-year increase. If that’s the case, it would be both the biggest online sales day of the season and the year. Black Friday online sales will grow at a faster rate (8.3%) to total $11.7 billion.
Those two days would help lead the Cyber 5 to generate $43.7 billion in online sales, according to Adobe. That would be 6.3% year-over-year growth.
2. BNPL on nearly 8% of all holiday sales
Adobe anticipates BNPL will account for $20.2 billion in online sales in November and December 2025.
That would be about $2 billion more than in 2024, when BNPL accounted for $18.2 billion during the holiday shopping season, per Adobe. Furthermore, Adobe data indicates that U.S. consumers will spend $1.04 billion using BNPL on Cyber Monday alone (up 5% year over year).
On Black Friday, they’ll spend $761.8 billion, according to Adobe. That’d be an 11% year-over-year increase.
And most BNPL spending will come from mobile devices during the 2025 holiday shopping season (79%), Adobe indicated. That’d be $15.6 billion in mobile BNPL sales, 8.3% growth over 2024.
3. Discounts comparable to 2024
Adobe said it expects discounts up to 28% off listed prices during the 2025 holidays, calling them “on par with the 2024 season.”
It expects the steepest discounts for electronics, specifically, to be 28% off, which would compare to 30.1% off in 2024. For toys, Adobe expects discounts of 27% off in 2025, which compares to 28% in 2024. Apparel discounts will be slightly higher than last year, according to Adobe: 25% versus 23.2%.
Additionally, it expects discounts on:
- TVs at 23% (vs. 24.2% in 2025)
- Computers at 23% (vs. 22.8%)
- Sporting goods at 19% (vs. 19.5%)
- Appliances at 18% (vs. 19.2%)
- Furniture at 18% (vs. 19%)
In terms of timing, Adobe expects the deepest discounts during the Cyber 5, calling Cyber Monday the “last call” for the season’s best deals. It said Thanksgiving will be the best day to shop for sporting goods, while Black Friday will be the best for TVs, toys and appliances. Cyber Monday will be the best day to shop for electronics, apparel and computers, according to Adobe.
“Consumers are not simply looking for the lowest price this season,” Adobe said in a statement. “Competitive discounts will drive shoppers to ‘trade up’ to higher-ticket items in certain categories — allowing individuals to get more value out of their dollar.”
That share of units sold for the most expensive products will rise by:
- 56% in sporting goods
- 52% in electronics
- 39% in appliances
- 32% in personal care
- 26% in tools/home improvement
The opposite will be true for groceries (down 3%) and furniture (down 8%), as shoppers embrace lower-priced items in these categories, Adobe said.
4. Three categories will drive more than half of all sales
More than half of all online sales during the 2025 holiday season (53.7%) will come from electronics, apparel and furniture, Adobe predicts.
By category, Adobe projects:
- Electronics ($57.5 billion, up 4% year over year)
- Apparel ($47.6 billion, up 4.4%)
- Furniture ($31.1 billion, up 6.5%)
In terms of growth rate, the biggest categories will be groceries (9.2% increase to reach $23.5 billion) and cosmetics (up 9.1% to total $8.4 billion), according to Adobe data.
It also expects gaming to be among the categories with the highest growth compared to the first eight months of 2025. It said console sales will increase 1,040% compared to that period, while game sales will increase 830% and accessories 820%.
Furthermore, it expects consoles including the Nintendo Switch 2, Sony PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X to generate the most sales. Among the most popular games to go with them, according to Adobe, will be:
- Donkey Kong Bananza
- Elden Ring: Nightreign
- Madden NFL 26
- NBA 2k26
- EA Sports FC 26
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
5. Generative AI and social media’s influence on shopping behavior
Generative AI-powered chat services and browsers — including but not limited to agents — will change how consumers act online, Adobe said. They’ll become helpful assistants for compiling research before making purchases.
Adobe said it “observed the first material surge in AI traffic to U.S. retail sites (measured by shoppers clicking on a link) during the 2024 season,” when that type of traffic increased 1,300% year over year. In 2025, Adobe expects AI-generated traffic to increase 520% year over year and peak in the 10 days leading up to Thanksgiving.
By shopping category, it also expects the most AI usage for toys, electronics, jewelry and personal care. The top use cases, according to data from an Adobe survey of more than 5,000 U.S. consumers, are:
- Research (which 53% of respondents cited)
- Product recommendations (40%)
- Finding deals (36%)
- Gift inspiration (30%)
Adobe also expects the share of online revenue attributed to social media traffic to rise 51% year over year. That’s more than 10 times the growth rate of 2024, when it was a 5% increase year over year.
“While major channels such as paid search and email continue to be reliable drivers of traffic and sales online, consumers are increasingly turning to social media to discover and learn about new products,” Adobe said.
It also noted that it anticipates revenue growth from affiliates and partners (which include social media influencers) to be 14% year over year.
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