Holiday Shopping Statistics 2026
By Axis Intelligence Research
Co-authors: Mia Scarlett & Alex Rivera | Last updated: October 2, 2026 | License: CC BY 4.0
U.S. holiday sales are forecast to top $1 trillion in 2026 (Bain) and online spending to reach $275.1 billion (Adobe). But Axis Intelligence Research’s Holiday Volume Gauge (HVG™) shows how much of that is real buying: about 3.3% in volume terms — triple what a headline-CPI deflation suggests.
Quick Answer
U.S. holiday retail sales are forecast at $1,016 billion for November–December 2026, up 4.5% (Bain & Company, Sept. 3, 2026), with $275.1 billion spent online (Adobe, Sept. 28, 2026). Axis Intelligence Research estimates that after stripping out holiday-relevant goods inflation, real holiday volume grows about 3.3% — and that prices account for roughly a quarter of the nominal gain, not most of it.
Key Findings
- Axis Intelligence Research estimates the Holiday Volume Gauge (HVG™) at 3.3% for 2026: Bain’s 4.5% nominal forecast deflated by a 1.16% holiday goods deflator built from BLS August 2026 CPI data.
- Axis Intelligence Research finds that deflating 2026 holiday sales by headline CPI (3.4%) understates real growth by 2.2 percentage points, because gasoline — up 27.4% year over year — is excluded from every holiday sales definition.
- Axis Intelligence Research estimates online apparel’s real holiday growth falls from 6.8% in 2025 to 1.1% in 2026, as BLS apparel prices swung from +0.6% to +3.6% year over year.
- The 2025 holiday season grew 4.1% on the CNBC/NRF Retail Monitor; Axis Intelligence Research calculates the implied total at $1,016.1 billion, the first season above $1 trillion on NRF’s definition.
- Axis Intelligence Research finds the online share of holiday sales is 31.6% on Bain’s definition but 18.6% on Deloitte’s — the same season, measured two ways.
How Much Will Americans Spend on the Holidays in 2026?
Three major forecasters have published 2026 numbers as of October 2. They do not measure the same thing, and the headline totals differ by $700 billion for reasons that are entirely definitional.
2026 Holiday Sales Forecasts Compared
| Forecaster | Window | 2026 forecast | Growth | Online / e-commerce | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bain & Company | Nov–Dec | ~$1,016B | +4.5% | ~$321B nonstore (+9%) | Bain, Sept. 3, 2026 |
| Deloitte | Nov–Jan | $1.70T–$1.71T | +4.0% to +4.8% | $316.1B–$318.9B (+7.5% to +8.4%) | Deloitte, Sept. 10, 2026 |
| Adobe Analytics | Nov–Dec | — | — | $275.1B (+6.7%) | Adobe, Sept. 28, 2026 |
| NRF | Nov–Dec | Not yet published | — | — | Expected early November |
Bain’s 2026 Holiday Shopping Outlook forecasts 4.5% growth, with in-store sales up 2.5% and nonstore sales up 9%, and puts the total at roughly $1,016 billion. Deloitte’s forecast covers a three-month window and projects $1.70 trillion to $1.71 trillion, with disposable personal income growing 4.5% to 5.2%. Adobe’s online forecast expects $275.1 billion in U.S. e-commerce from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31.
The National Retail Federation, whose number most outlets quote as “the” holiday forecast, typically publishes in early November. Its 2025 forecast came on Nov. 6, 2025.
Did Holiday Sales Already Pass $1 Trillion in 2025?
On NRF’s definition, yes. NRF reported 2024 holiday sales of $976.1 billion (NRF, Nov. 6, 2025), and the CNBC/NRF Retail Monitor measured 2025 growth at 4.1%. NRF did not publish a dollar total; Axis Intelligence Research calculates it at $976.1B × 1.041 = $1,016.1 billion.
Bain’s definition is unadjusted Census data excluding autos, gas stations and restaurants. On that basis 2026 is the first trillion-dollar season. Both claims are true. They describe different ledgers.
Mia Scarlett: Read a holiday forecast the way you read a segment note: check the perimeter before the number. “First $1 trillion season” has now been claimed for two consecutive years by two different methodologies. The figure that matters to a retail CFO is the growth rate within one series, and on every series published so far, that rate sits between 4% and 4.8% — the same band as the last four seasons.
How Much of Holiday Sales Growth Is Just Inflation?
This is the question the forecasts raise and none of them answer with a reproducible number. Bain’s outlook says inflation is a major contributor to nominal sales growth; CNBC, reporting on the forecast, said Bain expects most of the 4.5% to come from higher prices. Axis Intelligence Research built a transparent test.
The Holiday Volume Gauge (HVG™)
The Holiday Volume Gauge (HVG™) is an Axis Intelligence Research metric that estimates real holiday sales growth by deflating a nominal forecast or result with the prices of the goods holiday shoppers actually buy — not the headline CPI basket.
Step 1 — the Holiday Goods Deflator (HGD). We weight two BLS CPI-U components by their official relative importance:
HGD = (RI<sub>core goods</sub> × CPI<sub>core goods</sub> + RI<sub>food at home</sub> × CPI<sub>food at home</sub>) ÷ (RI<sub>core goods</sub> + RI<sub>food at home</sub>)
Step 2 — the gauge. HVG = [(1 + nominal growth) ÷ (1 + HGD) − 1] × 100
Core goods (“commodities less food and energy commodities”) cover apparel, furnishings, electronics and toys; food at home covers grocery, the fastest-growing online holiday category. Gasoline and services are excluded because every holiday sales definition excludes them.
HVG™ Readings
| Season | Nominal growth | Core goods CPI | Food-at-home CPI | HGD | HVG™ | Headline CPI | Headline-deflated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 actual (NRF) | 4.1% | 1.4% | 2.4% | 1.69% | 2.37% | 2.7% | 1.36% |
| 2026 forecast (Bain) | 4.5% | 0.7% | 2.2% | 1.16% | 3.31% | 3.4% | 1.06% |
| 2026 forecast (Deloitte, low) | 4.0% | 0.7% | 2.2% | 1.16% | 2.81% | 3.4% | 0.58% |
| 2026 forecast (Deloitte, high) | 4.8% | 0.7% | 2.2% | 1.16% | 3.60% | 3.4% | 1.35% |
Sources: NRF; Bain & Company; Deloitte; BLS CPI, December 2025 (weights: Nov. 2025 relative importance 19.223 / 7.973); BLS CPI, August 2026 (weights: July 2026 relative importance 18.842 / 8.232). HVG™ calculated by Axis Intelligence Research. 2026 readings use the latest CPI available on Oct. 2, 2026.
The finding is in the gap between the last two columns. Headline CPI rose 3.4% in the year to August 2026, but gasoline rose 27.4% and core goods only 0.7% (BLS). Deflate the holiday by headline CPI and real growth looks like 1.1%. Deflate it by the goods in the cart and it is 3.3%.
On these inputs, Axis Intelligence Research estimates price increases explain about 26% of Bain’s 4.5% nominal gain (1.16 ÷ 4.5), not most of it. Bain’s category-level deflators are not public, so we can’t reconcile the two directly; what we can say is that the published BLS goods indices do not support “mostly inflation” at the aggregate level.
Mia Scarlett: The pump is distorting the read. Consumers feel 3.4% inflation because they fill a tank every week, and the September confidence collapse reflects exactly that. But a retailer’s shelf is running at well under 2% price growth. That combination — a pessimistic shopper with more real purchasing power at the register than the mood suggests — is what produced the strongest real holiday reading in this dataset. The risk is the reverse: if gas keeps eating the tax-refund cushion, nominal sales miss and the volume story never gets tested.
Is Inflation Hitting Some Holiday Categories Harder?
Yes, and apparel is the outlier. Axis Intelligence Research deflated Adobe’s online category growth by the matching BLS CPI component.
| Category (online) | 2025 nominal | 2025 CPI | 2025 real | 2026F nominal | Aug 2026 CPI | 2026F real |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grocery | +10.2% | 2.4% | +7.6% | +10.3% | 2.2% | +7.9% |
| Apparel | +7.4% | 0.6% | +6.8% | +4.7% | 3.6% | +1.1% |
| Furniture | +6.6% | 3.6% | +2.9% | +7.3% | −0.8% | +8.2% |
Sources: Adobe Analytics (Jan. 7, 2026; Sept. 28, 2026); BLS CPI (apparel; furniture and bedding; food at home). Real growth calculated by Axis Intelligence Research; 2026 uses forecasts and the August 2026 CPI.
Online apparel is forecast to grow 4.7% to $51.3 billion. Nearly all of that is price. Furniture runs the other way: falling furniture prices mean Adobe’s 7.3% forecast implies the biggest unit gain among the three.
How Much Do Americans Spend Online During the Holidays?
U.S. consumers spent $257.8 billion online from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31, 2025, up 6.8% (Adobe, Jan. 7, 2026). Adobe forecasts $275.1 billion for 2026, up 6.7% — an extra $17.3 billion. Axis Intelligence Research calculates average daily online spend rises from $4.23 billion to $4.51 billion.
Online Holiday Sales: 2025 Actual vs. 2026 Forecast
| Metric | 2025 actual | 2026 forecast | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Season total (Nov–Dec) | $257.8B (+6.8%) | $275.1B (+6.7%) | Adobe |
| Cyber Week (5 days) | $44.2B | $47.5B (+7.4%) | Adobe |
| October pre-season | — | $95.8B (+8%) | Adobe |
| Mobile share of spend | 56.4% | 57.4% | Adobe |
| Buy now, pay later | $20B (+9.8%) | $21.3B (+6.6%) | Adobe |
| Days above $4B | 25 | — | Adobe |
On HVG™ math, online volume grows about 5.5% in 2026, versus 5.0% in 2025. Online is still where the real growth is.
Axis Intelligence Research calculates that October 2026 online spend equals 34.8% of the full November–December season — a pre-season Adobe says is now shaped by October Prime Day events industrywide. For the day-level picture — Cyber Monday’s lead over Black Friday and its BNPL share — see our Cyber Monday statistics.
What Share of Holiday Shopping Happens Online?
It depends entirely on whose denominator you use.
| Definition | Online / nonstore | Total | Online share | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bain (Nov–Dec 2026F, nonstore incl. mail order, ex-restaurants) | ~$321B | ~$1,016B | 31.6% | Bain |
| Deloitte (Nov–Jan 2025 actual) | $294B | $1,630B | 18.0% | Deloitte / Census |
| Deloitte (Nov–Jan 2026F, midpoints) | $317.5B | $1,705B | 18.6% | Deloitte |
| Census, all retail, Q2 2026 (not holiday) | $340.2B | — | 17.1% | U.S. Census Bureau |
Shares calculated by Axis Intelligence Research within each source. We do not divide Adobe’s online total by another firm’s total: the methodologies differ.
Bain’s “nonstore” category counts everything sold by nonstore retailers, including mail order; Deloitte’s e-commerce figure isolates online transactions and its total keeps food services in. Neither is wrong. A journalist who writes “a third of holiday shopping is online” and one who writes “under a fifth” are both citing real data.
What Are the Biggest Holiday Shopping Categories Online?
| Category | 2025 online sales | 2025 growth | 2026 forecast | 2026 growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electronics | $59.8B | +8.2% | $63.3B | +5.9% |
| Apparel | $49.0B | +7.4% | $51.3B | +4.7% |
| Furniture | $31.1B | +6.6% | $33.4B | +7.3% |
| Grocery | $23.7B | +10.2% | $26.1B | +10.3% |
| Toys | $8.8B | +7.8% | $9.6B | +9.6% |
| Cosmetics | $8.4B | +9.3% | $9.2B | +9.5% |
Source: Adobe Analytics, Jan. 7, 2026 and Sept. 28, 2026.
Grocery is the fastest-growing major online holiday category for the second straight year. Electronics, the largest, decelerates from 8.2% to 5.9%. In stores, the December picture was split: the Retail Monitor showed clothing stores up 6.11% year over year, but electronics and appliance stores down 0.09% and furniture stores down 0.82%.
Mia Scarlett: Electronics is the segment to watch in the January filings. It’s a third of online holiday revenue, its growth is forecast to slow by more than two points, and its stores ended 2025 flat. When the biggest line in the mix decelerates, the season’s headline holds up only if grocery and toys — low-ticket, high-frequency baskets — carry more weight. That’s a margin story before it’s a sales story.
How Much Does the Average Person Spend on Holiday Shopping?
The two widely cited per-person surveys measure different things, so they should never be averaged.
| Survey | Scope | 2025 plan | Change | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NRF / Prosper (8,247 adults) | Gifts, food, décor, cards | $890.49 | −1.3% vs $901.99 | NRF, Oct. 16, 2025 |
| Deloitte Holiday Retail Survey | Retail + experiences | $1,595 | −10% | Deloitte, Oct. 2025 |
Of NRF’s $890.49, $627.93 goes to gifts and $262.56 to seasonal items. NRF found 85% of shoppers expected tariff-driven price increases and 63% planned to do most of their shopping over Thanksgiving weekend.
Both firms typically release their 2026 consumer surveys in mid-October; this page will add them on publication.
How Many People Shop Over Thanksgiving Weekend?
A record 202.9 million Americans shopped from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday 2025, up from 197 million (NRF / Prosper, Dec. 2, 2025). Online shoppers (134.9 million, +9%) outnumbered in-store shoppers (129.5 million, +3%). Weekend shoppers spent $337.86 on average on holiday items and still had 53% of their holiday shopping left. NRF expected 158.9 million shoppers on Super Saturday.
How Are AI and Social Media Changing Holiday Shopping?
Generative-AI referral traffic to U.S. retail sites jumped 693.4% in the 2025 season, though Adobe called the user base modest. Adobe forecasts a further 130% rise for 2026. Bain’s August 2026 survey (n=1,105) found 24% of online shoppers plan to start holiday shopping on a gen-AI platform, up from 17% in October 2025, and another 13% plan to use a retailer’s own AI agent. Amazon remains the top starting point at 71%.
Social media carried 4.6% of 2025 holiday online revenue, up from 3.3% (Adobe). For the conversion and trust side of AI-assisted buying, see our agentic commerce statistics and AI search statistics.
What Could Make the 2026 Holiday Season Miss?
The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index fell 6.7 points to 81.9 in September 2026, its lowest since 2014 (as reported by Reuters). Gasoline, up 27.4% in a year (BLS), is the most-cited reason. Offsetting that, Bain counts U.S. tax refunds up $43 billion this year.
Labor is the other signal. NRF’s 2025 forecast called for 265,000 to 365,000 seasonal hires against 442,000 in 2024 — Axis Intelligence Research calculates a 17% to 40% reduction in planned seasonal headcount.
Mia Scarlett: Retailers hiring a fifth to two-fifths fewer seasonal workers while forecasting record sales is a guidance tell: they expect the volume but don’t trust it enough to staff it. The HVG™ says the real demand is there on current prices. Whether it shows up depends on one input none of the forecasts control — what a gallon costs in December.
Methodology
Collection. Every figure was retrieved on October 2, 2026, from primary releases: Adobe Analytics (Jan. 7 and Sept. 28, 2026), Bain & Company (Sept. 3, 2026), Deloitte (Sept. 10, 2026 forecast; October 2025 survey), NRF and Prosper Insights (Oct. 16, Nov. 6, Dec. 2, 2025; Retail Monitor, Jan. 12, 2026), the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI (December 2025 and August 2026 releases) and the U.S. Census Bureau quarterly e-commerce report (Aug. 18, 2026). Two context figures (Bain’s inflation view as reported by CNBC; Conference Board confidence as reported by Reuters) are marked non-primary in the dataset.
Axis metrics.
- Holiday Goods Deflator (HGD) = relative-importance-weighted average of BLS CPI-U 12-month changes for core goods and food at home, using the weights published in the same release.
- Holiday Volume Gauge (HVG™) = [(1 + nominal growth) ÷ (1 + HGD) − 1] × 100.
- Category real growth = Adobe category growth deflated by the matching BLS CPI component.
- Online share = online or nonstore sales ÷ total sales, always within a single source.
Choices. The core goods index includes new and used vehicles, which holiday sales definitions exclude; vehicle prices moved +0.6% and −2.3% in the year to August 2026, so their inclusion slightly lowers the deflator. 2026 readings use August 2026 CPI, the latest available; they will be re-run as September–December CPI is published. Adobe, NRF, Bain and Deloitte figures are never combined into a single number.
About This Dataset
holiday-shopping-statistics.csv contains 158 rows: U.S. holiday sales totals and forecasts from NRF, Bain and Deloitte (2024–2026), Adobe online season, category and channel data, NRF and Deloitte consumer surveys, BLS CPI inputs with relative-importance weights, Census e-commerce, and every Axis Intelligence Research calculation with its formula. Each row carries source organization, document, URL, retrieval date, primary flag and method note. Licensed CC BY 4.0; mirrored on Hugging Face, Kaggle and GitHub.
We update it when a tracked source publishes: NRF’s 2026 forecast (early November), each monthly CPI release, Adobe’s Cyber Week and season recaps, and the Retail Monitor’s December data.
Cite as: Axis Intelligence Research, Holiday Shopping Statistics 2026, 2026.
Cite This Page
- APA: Axis Intelligence Research, & Scarlett, M. (2026). Holiday shopping statistics 2026: The first $1 trillion season, deflated. Axis Intelligence. https://axis-intelligence.com/holiday-shopping-statistics/
- MLA: Axis Intelligence Research, and Mia Scarlett. “Holiday Shopping Statistics 2026: The First $1 Trillion Season, Deflated.” Axis Intelligence, 2 Oct. 2026, axis-intelligence.com/holiday-shopping-statistics/.
- Chicago: Axis Intelligence Research and Mia Scarlett. “Holiday Shopping Statistics 2026: The First $1 Trillion Season, Deflated.” Axis Intelligence, October 2, 2026. https://axis-intelligence.com/holiday-shopping-statistics/.
Holiday Spending Questions, Answered
Is the $1 trillion holiday forecast real growth or just higher prices?
Mostly real, on current data. Axis Intelligence Research’s Holiday Volume Gauge (HVG™) puts real 2026 growth at about 3.3% on Bain’s 4.5% forecast, with goods prices explaining roughly a quarter of the gain.
Why do forecasters say inflation is high if holiday goods inflation is low?
Headline CPI rose 3.4% in the year to August 2026, driven by gasoline (+27.4%). Core goods rose 0.7% and food at home 2.2% (BLS). Gas isn’t counted in holiday retail sales.
Which holiday category is growing only because of price increases?
Apparel. Adobe forecasts online apparel up 4.7% in 2026, while BLS apparel prices rose 3.6% — about 1.1% real growth, down from 6.8% in 2025, per Axis Intelligence Research.
Why are Deloitte’s holiday sales six times Adobe’s?
Deloitte’s $1.70–$1.71 trillion covers all retail for November through January. Adobe’s $275.1 billion covers only online sales for November and December. Different scopes, not conflicting data.
When does NRF release its 2026 holiday forecast?
NRF released its 2025 forecast on Nov. 6, 2025, and typically publishes in early November. As of Oct. 2, 2026, the 2026 forecast is not out.
How early do people start holiday shopping now?
Adobe expects $95.8 billion in October 2026 online spending — 34.8% of the size of the full November–December season, per Axis Intelligence Research. In NRF’s 2025 survey, 42% planned to start before November.
Is grocery really a holiday shopping category?
Online, yes. Grocery is Adobe’s fastest-growing major category: $26.1 billion forecast for 2026, up 10.3%. After BLS food-at-home inflation, Axis Intelligence Research estimates real growth near 7.9%.
What could make 2026 holiday sales disappoint?
Fuel and confidence. The Conference Board index fell to 81.9 in September 2026, its lowest since 2014, with gas prices up 27.4% year over year eroding the $43 billion tax-refund boost Bain cites.
Related on Axis Intelligence: Cyber Monday statistics · Buy now, pay later statistics · Shopify BFCM data · Stripe Black Friday volume · Payment fraud statistics · Agentic commerce statistics