Adobe has released its forecast for the 2026 holiday shopping season, projecting that online sales in the last two months of the year will reach $275.1 billion.
It said it based its forecast on more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites, 100 million SKUs and 18 product categories. The company refers to the holiday shopping season as Nov. 1 through Dec. 31.
The projection indicates that online holiday-season sales in 2026 would increase 6.7% year over year. Within that period, Adobe anticipates sales during the Cyber 5 to reach $47.5 billion. That would represent 7.4% year-over-year growth, in addition to 17.3% of 2026’s total online holiday sales.
The Cyber 5 refers to the five-day period that runs from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday.
Adobe anticipates six categories to lead 2026 holiday-season online sales:
- Electronics ($63.3 billion, which would mark a 5.9% year-over-year increase)
- Apparel ($51.3 billion, up 4.7%)
- Furniture ($33.4 billion, up 7.3%)
- Grocery ($26.1 billion, up 10.3%)
- Toys ($9.6 billion, up 9.6%)
- Cosmetics ($9.2 billion, up 9.5%)
Adobe’s anticipated online sales trends during the 2026 holiday season
The Adobe projection indicates Cyber Monday surpassing $15 billion in online sales — setting a new bar for the most in a single day. In total, consumers spent $14.25 billion in ecommerce sales on Cyber Monday 2025, according to Adobe. Its projection has Cyber Monday generating $15.1 billion online in the U.S., which would mark 6.2% year-over-year growth.
That would continue a trend in which each year since 2022, Cyber Monday has set records for the most ecommerce sales in a single day.
Adobe also projects Black Friday will be the second-largest day during the holiday season in terms of sales. It anticipates Black Friday sales in 2026 reaching $12.9 billion, increasing 9.2% year over year.
Furthermore, Adobe anticipates Thanksgiving Day ecommerce sales to reach $6.9 billion in 2026. That would mark 8.5% growth on a day that Adobe projects 63% of all online sales to come from mobile devices. 61.6% of all Thanksgiving Day ecommerce sales came from mobile devices in 2025, per Adobe.
In total throughout the 2026 holiday shopping season, Adobe projects 57.4% of online sales to come from mobile devices. That would mark an increase from 56.4% the year before.
Buy now, pay later (BNPL) could generate $21.3 billion in holiday-season ecommerce sales, Adobe said, up 6.6%. And on Cyber Monday alone, BNPL usage could account for $1.09 billion. Cyber Monday 2025 marked the first time BNPL-related ecommerce sales surpassed $1 billion in a single day. Adobe also projects BNPL spending for online orders to reach $807 million on Black Friday 2026.
Impact of AI platforms on 2026 holiday season’s sales
Adobe first began measuring how consumers use artificial intelligence (AI)-based chat and browser services for online shopping during the 2024 holiday season.
Compared to October 2024, when generative AI platforms such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT became more widespread, AI-referral traffic has increased 1,219% in July 2026, Adobe found. That was also 62% year-over-year growth in July.
In the 2026 holiday shopping season, Adobe projects AI traffic to U.S. retail sites to increase 130% year over year. It expects the largest increases on:
- Thanksgiving, at 159% year-over-year growth
- Black Friday, 95% increase
- Cyber Monday, 88% increase
Additionally, Adobe shared insights from a survey it conducted of 5,000 online shoppers. It found that 77% of respondents who have used AI for online shopping reported feeling more confident in their purchase. 69% of respondents said they were less likely to return an item they bought.
Pre-holiday-season sales boost
And leading up to the holiday season, Adobe anticipates U.S. consumers will spend $95.8 billion online during October 2026. That would be 8% more than the same month in 2025. Adobe attributes that growth, in part, to Amazon’s Prime Day event in October, which leads other online retailers to offer their own discounts to compete.
Specifically, Adobe anticipates U.S. consumers spending $10 billion online during the 48-hour Amazon Prime Day event period on Oct. 6 and 7.
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