Adobe: 2025 holiday shoppers got steeper discounts and leaned harder on "buy now, pay later"

Adobe's holiday shopping report, covering November 1 through December 31, 2025 and based on Adobe Analytics data across more than a trillion U.S. retail site visits, found consumers spent a record $257.8 billion online — up 6.8% from 2024. The season saw 25 separate days with $4 billion or more in single-day online spend, compared to 18 such days the year before, and Cyber Monday remained the single biggest day at $14.25 billion, up 7.1% year over year.

Discounting was steep and category-specific. Electronics carried the deepest average discounts at 30.9% off list price, followed by toys at 29.8% and apparel at 25.1%. Adobe's pre-season forecast had projected discounts around 28% across categories — comparable to 2024 — and the actual electronics figure came in even deeper than that forecast.

"Buy now, pay later" usage hit a new high, contributing $20 billion to total online holiday spend, up 9.8% year over year and $1.8 billion more than the prior season. Mobile devices drove the large majority of BNPL purchases, at 82.2% of transactions, and mobile overall accounted for 56.4% of all online holiday transactions — 66.5% on Christmas Day specifically.

The data also captured a fast-emerging new channel: generative AI-driven shopping traffic. Adobe's pre-season forecast had projected a 520% jump in AI-assisted purchasing behavior, and the actual season saw generative AI referral traffic to retail sites rise 693.4% year over year — still a small share of total traffic compared to paid search or email, but growing at a pace that makes it a channel pricing and merchandising teams can no longer treat as a rounding error.