The outlook for holiday e-commerce sales is strong, according to Salesforce data, which forecasts that November and December digital sales will reach $1.25 trillion, up 4% year-over-year, although the software provider expects online revenue in the United States to grow at a more modest 2% rate for a total of $288 billion.
Although consumers are likely to be value-driven in this holiday season, retailers may not live up to their expectations, which could create some frustration among consumers. Salesforce pointed out that retailers may be more deliberate with holiday promotions in 2025. For example, Salesforce research suggests that 2% fewer orders are coming in with a promotional code as retailers take a cautious approach to discounting, likely in response to rising supply chain costs.
Holiday change is in the air, Salesforce suggests, with $64 billion of holiday sales coming from the resale market this year, driven by consumer sentiment around potential tariff volatility. The trend includes 46% of shoppers who intend to give a previously owned item as a gift, with saving money being the top reported reason for doing so. Yet, when it comes to spending plans, 77% of consumers said they would wait until Cyber Week to make their major purchases, also to save money.
Salesforce noted that physical stores remain a critical sales channel for holiday shoppers, especially for the three in four Gen Z holiday consumers who expect to visit physical retail locations with promotional periods such as Black Friday, seeing a particular brick-and-mortar shift. Despite being a digitally native generation, for every dollar a Gen Z shopper spends online, they anticipate spending three times that amount in a brick-and-mortar store, Salesforce maintained.
The company predicts that a significant portion of the growth this upcoming holiday season will involve AI and agent-referred traffic, which it projects will drive 21% of all holiday orders globally, accounting for $263 billion in sales. The company asserted that traffic involving AI assistants have grown rapidly in 2025, with online visitation volumes growing 119% year over year in the first half of 2025. Conversion rates from these channels were over 700% higher than social media traffic in the first half of this year and 200% higher than other traffic sources like traditional search and direct, Salesforce declared.
