U.S. online holiday shopping was a record in 2025, fueled by a strong Cyber Week, according to new data released on Jan. 7 by Adobe.
Consumers spent $257.8 billion from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31, which was a 6.8 percent year-over-year increase and included a new record for online shopping.
This beat Adobe’s forecast of $253.4 billion.
Adobe calculates its estimates using direct online transactions and data from more than 1 trillion U.S. retail site visits.
The solid performance was driven by the five-day holiday—Thanksgiving Day to Cyber Monday—which generated more than $44 billion in overall online transactions. Within this period, Cyber Monday was the biggest e-commerce day of the season, accounting for $14.25 billion of sales.
Cost-conscious consumers were on the hunt for strong discounts, and they found savings, particularly in electronics, toys, apparel, and appliances. Discounts off the listed prices were higher than in the previous year, enabling shoppers to trade up and purchase higher-ticket items.
Three trends were also prevalent across the two-month Christmas shopping season, according to Adobe: mobile shopping; buy now, pay later programs; and use of generative artificial intelligence (AI).
“This 2025 holiday season, consumers embraced generative AI more than ever as a shopping assistant in their purchasing decisions,” Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, said in a statement to The Epoch Times.
“Competitive discounts and flexible payment options like Buy Now Pay Later also contributed to driving record spend of $257.8 billion throughout this holiday season.”
Mobile shopping reached a new milestone, accounting for 56.4 percent of online transactions.
Buy now, pay later—a flexible payment method that allows consumers to pay for a purchase at a later date—climbed to an all-time high and contributed $20 billion in online spending. This was up nearly 10 percent from the same time a year ago.
Cyber Monday was the biggest day on record for buy now, pay later schemes, topping $1 billion.
An Adobe survey conducted in November 2025 found that consumers planned to use the program for apparel, electronics, furniture, and toys.
Meanwhile, generative AI-powered chat services were a crucial tool for shoppers to locate deals and research products throughout the holidays—and it paid off for retailers.
In total, traffic to retail sites driven by generative AI platforms jumped by more than 693 percent year over year. On Cyber Monday alone, AI‑referred visits to U.S. retail websites surged by 670 percent.
Consumers relied most heavily on these AI services for appliances, electronics, personal care products, toys, and video games.
Every year, retailers brace for a wave of post-Christmas returns, and 2025 was no different.
Although overall holiday season returns were down 1.2 percent from a year ago, they climbed by 4.7 percent year over year in the five days following Christmas Day.
Most Wonderful Time of the Year
Overall, it was a terrific year for retailers as U.S. holiday spending rose at a non-inflation-adjusted pace of 4.2 percent, according to the annual Retail Spend Monitor report from Visa Consulting & Analytics.Wayne Best, chief economist at Visa, also said that AI played a role.
“This season also marked a turning point, with artificial intelligence shaping how people discover products, compare prices, and interact with offers,” Best said in a statement. “This led to a more informed, more intentional consumer, ensuring they could stretch their discretionary spending.”
The credit card giant noted that consumers shopped early, took advantage of store promotions, and blended brick-and-mortar shopping with the online experience.
