Adobe projects U.S. online holiday sales for Nov. 1–Dec. 31, 2026 will reach $275.1 billion, up 6.7% year over year. The number matters because it ties together three operational realities retailers must address now: the majority of purchases will come from mobile devices, buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) will account for a material share of checkouts, and AI-driven discovery is already routing significant traffic to product pages.
Big dates and headline totals
Adobe expects the five-day Cyber 5 period (Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday) to generate $47.5 billion, roughly 17.3% of the season total and a 7.4% increase from 2025. Cyber Monday is forecast to hit $15.1 billion—surpassing Adobe’s 2025 single‑day high of $14.25 billion—while Black Friday is projected at $12.9 billion and Thanksgiving Day at $6.9 billion.
Adobe also flags pre-holiday momentum: October 2026 online spending is forecast at $95.8 billion, an 8% rise vs. October 2025, with Amazon’s Prime Day (Oct. 6–7) expected to account for about $10 billion of that total during its 48‑hour window.
Leading categories and where growth is coming from
Six categories are expected to lead online holiday dollars: electronics ($63.3 billion, +5.9% YoY); apparel ($51.3 billion, +4.7%); furniture ($33.4 billion, +7.3%); grocery ($26.1 billion, +10.3%); toys ($9.6 billion, +9.6%); and cosmetics ($9.2 billion, +9.5%). Electronics and apparel will dominate absolute spend, while grocery, toys and cosmetics show the fastest percentage gains.
Mobile and payment trends
Mobile is central to Adobe’s forecast: the company expects 57.4% of holiday online sales to come from mobile devices in 2026, up from 56.4% in 2025. On Thanksgiving Day specifically, mobile’s share is projected at 63%.
Buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) is projected to account for $21.3 billion of holiday ecommerce—about a 6.6% increase—highlighting BNPL’s role in higher‑ticket and impulse purchases. Adobe expects BNPL to represent roughly $1.09 billion on Cyber Monday and $807 million on Black Friday.
AI referrals and shopper behavior
Adobe now measures traffic referred by generative AI chat and browser tools. Comparing October 2024 to July 2026, AI-referral traffic grew 1,219%; July 2026 itself was up 62% year over year. For the holiday window, Adobe projects AI-driven traffic to increase 130% YoY, with the biggest spikes on Thanksgiving (159% YoY), Black Friday (95%) and Cyber Monday (88%).
In a survey of 5,000 online shoppers, respondents who had used AI for shopping reported greater purchase confidence (77%) and lower likelihood of returns (69%), suggesting AI referrals may not only increase sessions but also affect conversion quality and return rates.
What merchants and marketers should do next
Adobe’s numbers imply three practical priorities. First, treat mobile as the primary channel: prioritize checkout speed, payment clarity, and device‑specific UX testing. Second, make BNPL a visible option where it suits your product mix and margin structure, and ensure accounting and fraud controls are tuned for higher BNPL volumes. Third, instrument AI referrals in analytics so you can attribute discovery and optimize upstream media and content investments.
Operationally, align inventory and promotional plans with category trends—electronics and apparel for scale; grocery, toys and cosmetics for faster percentage growth. And because Adobe does not publish full model assumptions with its headline, build contingency plans for inventory and advertising that allow rapid adjustment as real‑world October indicators emerge.
What to watch in the coming weeks: Adobe’s real‑time retail indicators, early‑October spend around Prime Day, mobile conversion rates, and the proportion of orders using BNPL and AI-originated referrals. Those signals will determine whether Adobe’s projection is a useful planning ceiling or a baseline to beat.
