Consumer holiday spending for 2025 is already up almost 10% and ahead of forecast, according to the latest data from Adobe. In the first 24 days of the holiday season, Americans have spent $77.4 billion online, including a new record of over $3 billion for 21 of those days.
Part of the reason for the trend? We’re buying more expensive stuff.
“Between April 2019 and August 2024, Adobe found that the share-of-units-sold for the most expensive goods online decreased by 47%, as consumers embraced cheaper goods,” the company said in a statement. “This trend reversed in the first 24 days of the holiday season: The share of the most expensive goods increased by 15.1% compared to pre-season figures, as consumers embrace everything from bigger TVs to more advanced washing machines.”
That’s corroborated by data from search intelligence firm Captify, which says that the products consumers are searching more for this week include those from premium brands such as Dyson, Apple, Nikon, Bose, and Anker.
What are we spending the most on?
- Electronics: $17.7 billion (up 11.4% YoY)
- Apparel ($14.5 billion, up 13.4% YoY)
- Grocery ($7.5 billion, up 16.8% YoY)
- Furniture/bedding ($9.5 billion, up 7.2% YoY)
- Cosmetics ($3.2 billion, up 10.1% YoY)
In that massive electronics category, the share of the most expensive goods is up 42% compared to pre-season numbers. This suggests that we’re willing to spend big for things that matter, but we’re also willing to wait for those large purchases until retailers offer seasonal savings for Black Friday or Cyber Monday.
The most trending products in consumer searches, according to Captify:
- Anker Charger
- Bissell Little Green Machine
- Lego Art Set
- Ninja Creami
- Dyson Cordless Vacuum
- HP Laptop
- AirPods Pro
- Nike Camera
- MacBook Air
- Oura Ring
- Breville Barista
- Our Place Always Pan
- Vitamax Blender
- Levoit Air Purifier
- Bose Headphones
While traffic from traditional search engines like Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo is still critical for retailers, referrals from AI chatbots and LLMs like ChatGPT, Claude, Google’s Gemini, and Microsoft’s Copilot are increasingly important. In fact, the growth is astronomical:
“From Jan. 1 to Aug. 31, 2024, traffic to retail sites from generative AI-powered chat bots (consumers clicking on a link to retail site) increased by 900% compared to the same period in 2023,” Adobe says. “Coming into the holiday season (first 24 days), usage continued to surge, up a staggering 1,700% compared to the same period in 2023.”
70% of people have used generative AI tools for product searches, Adobe says, and 40% planned to use it during the holiday shopping season. (That tracks with my personal experience: I’m using ChatGPT for searches more than Google or DuckDuckGo lately—including product searches.)
While spending is up, many of us are deferring paying for those purchases to a later date. Adobe says buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) purchases are up almost 4% from last year, and drove almost $6 billion of the total $77.4 billion season spend to date.
Plus, as expected, mobile shopping is up compared to desktop or laptop, now hitting 51.6% of all online spend in the 2024 holiday season, and growing 13.3% compared to 2023.
Estimates for the Cyber Week shopping extravaganza are now at an additional $40.6 billion in online spend.
