Holiday season e-commerce sales hit $258 billion: Adobe

Shoppers spent a record $257.8 billion online during the holiday season this year, a 6.8% year over year jump, according to Adobe Analytics.

The shopping season, which spans November 1 through December 31, saw 25 days when spending hit $4 billion, besting 2024’s 18 days. Use of buy now, pay later methods also peaked this year, up 9.8% to $20 billion, posting the largest-ever spend day on Cyber Monday.

Online Cyber Week spend rose 7.7% YoY to $44.2 billion online. While Cyber Monday proved to be the biggest e-commerce day of the year, bringing in $14.25 billion in spend (up 7.1%), Black Friday’s growth actually outpaced Cyber Monday, with online spend jumping 9.1% to $11.8 billion.

Electronics were the top category, up 8.2% YoY to $59.8 billion, followed by apparel and furniture. Cosmetics got a 9.3% bump to $8.4 billion, while grocery spend increased 10.2% to $23.7 billion. Top sellers included video games, refrigerators and freezers, washers and dryers, and headphones and speakers.

Consumers shopped on their phones even more this season, with smartphone transactions accounting for 56.4% of online spend, compared to 54.5% in 2024. Mobile shopping peaked on Christmas Day, followed by Thanksgiving.

Discounts were, of course, a draw for consumers, particularly within electronics (the top discounts reached ~31% off), toys, apparel, TVs, computers, sporting goods, appliances, and furniture. Many consumers opted to use the season to purchase higher-ticket items, with units sold rising 20% versus the rest of the year, with the top category—electronics—up 56%.

Adobe also found that generative AI traffic to retail sites jumped 693.4% during the holiday season, though it noted the number of consumers using these tools was “modest.”

Zoom out: NRF predicted in November consumers would surpass $1 trillion, with growth between 3.7% and 4.2%, in overall holiday spending in 2025, but has yet to release final figures for the season. According to Mastercard SpendingPulse data, spending jumped 3.9% YoY between November 1 and December 21 across channels, while Visa reported a 4.2% increase in spend over the seven weeks starting November 1. Accounting for inflation, several analysts predicted holiday season sales volumes would likely see little growth.

Census Bureau retail sales numbers continued to be delayed due to last year’s government shutdown, with November’s data set to be published next week.