Holiday 2025 Shopper Mindset: What Marketers Need to Know

Holiday Shopping 2025: What Marketers Need to Know

The holiday season always brings surprises, but this year feels different. Shoppers are still buying, but they’re doing it with more intention. Prices remain high, budgets are tighter, and people are weighing decisions a bit longer than they used to.

I recently wrote a guest post for MarTech Cube, digging into this shift in shopper mindset. Here’s a quick look at what stood out.

Shoppers Are More Careful With Their Money

People haven’t stopped spending, but they’re more cautious. They’re sticking to budgets, comparing more, and thinking harder before committing.

For brands, that means your value story has to be clear. Customers want to know why your product is worth it, not just that it’s on sale.

Promotions Still Matter but Not in the Same Way

Holiday discounts will always grab attention, but blanket markdowns aren’t the only way to win.

Smarter incentives like early access, bundles, or tiered offers tend to resonate more with today’s value-focused shopper. It’s less about racing to the bottom and more about showing that your promotion actually makes sense.

Convenience Goes a Long Way

The easier you make the purchase experience, the better. Clear delivery timelines, smooth returns, and straightforward policies all influence buying decisions. These aren’t “extras” anymore — they’re part of what shoppers expect.

Email and SMS Still Deliver

Despite all the noise in the market, lifecycle messaging remains reliable. Email and SMS continue to drive strong results during peak shopping periods.

Well-timed sends and solid automation, such as cart abandonment messages, back-in-stock alerts, and post-purchase series, matter. a lot.

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»» Holiday 2025: What Marketers Need to Know About Shoppers’ New Mindset

2019 Holiday Season Takeaways and Ecommerce Marketing Action Items

The 2019 holiday season has concluded, and once again ecommerce experienced record-breaking sales. This online holiday season registered just above $142 billion in online sales, a 13% increase from last year, according to Adobe Analytics.

But what made the 2019 holiday season so successful, and which trends have become the new normal? Let’s explore.

The Subtle Nuances of November

In sports, subtle moves with a major impact are called the “game within the game,” which succinctly describes the continuing evolution of Gray November’s monthlong series of discounts.

We started seeing pre-Black Friday deals and other heavy discounts start in late October. But once we entered November, we started seeing this “game within the game” begin to play out.

Black Friday is Now a Week-long Event

The concept of Black Friday week started in 2018 and became an official thing this year. Many retailers started their sales on the previous Sunday, and many others jumped in on Monday.

Beginning that day, more than a quarter of subject lines in my personal retailer tracking inbox had the term “Black Friday.” It’s possible that Black Friday week was a result of the day falling later in the year, but it continues the trend of a growing sales event. Expect this to be the new norm. 

The Cyber Five Expands to the Cyber Ten

The Cyber Five (Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday) now accounts for 20% of the holiday season’s ecommerce revenue. But this period has morphed into the Cyber Ten, thanks in part to Black Friday week.

The ten days from the Sunday before Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday accounted for seven of the top online sales days of the entire season, with six of them hitting $3 billion+ in ecommerce sales and accounting for 27% of the total holiday revenue.

Black Friday, Cyber Monday Remain Tentpoles

Black Friday recorded $7.4 billion in ecommerce sales, falling just short of Cyber Monday 2018’s record-setting $7.9 billion day.

But this year, shoppers propelled Cyber Monday to $9.4 billion in ecommerce sales, meaning both days grew nearly 20% year-over-year. While consumers show a willingness to shop early, they’re also willing to shop often, especially on these tentpole days.

The New Daily Online Sales Benchmark is $2B

Only a couple of years ago, $1 billion in one-day ecommerce sales was the benchmark to hit during the holidays. In 2018, only the period of Dec. 22-25 failed to reach that mark.

But in 2019, only Christmas Eve missed it, with $850 million in ecommerce sales. Two billion dollars is now the new online sales benchmark, with 29 days reaching it, including each day during the Cyber Ten.

Mobile Revenue Grows, Smartphones Gain Share

Mobile continued its march toward the dominant shopping method in the 2019 holiday season. However, tablet’s share of mobile was replaced by smartphones.

• In 2019, purchases on smartphones accounted for nearly 35% of revenue, according to Adobe, while tablets accounted for 5%

• In 2018 season, smartphones made up 31% of revenue, and tablets 9%

We saw this same shifting pattern for mobile devices in web traffic:

• In 2019, smartphones accounted for 58% of retail web traffic, while tablets hit 5%

• This was up from 51% in 2018, when tablets made up 8% of the traffic

I have repeatedly said if you’re not mobile optimized, you’re not optimized – and we’re clearly at the point now where smartphone optimization is table stakes. 

Consumers Continue to Value Email

Email marketing continued to drive ecommerce sales, accounting for 17% of online revenue this year, nearly half of which (49%) came from smartphones. To put this in context, social media drove less than 2% of sales. You can see why email marketing is a powerful promotional tactic.

Email volume continues to increase year over year, confirming that Gray November is alive and well. This season, average daily sends began to increase the last week of October and continued through November. Overall, there were 10% more emails sent in November than in October.

Emails sent from the Bronto Marketing Platform supports the notion that Black Friday week is a promotional event. In November, there were 54% more emails sent during Black Friday week than in the previous weeks. This represents a significant increase in sends during the week of Black Friday compared to previous years.

Of course, discounting in email remained the top tactic. Eighty-four percent of consumers said they’re more likely to open emails with discounts, and 58% felt that relevant email offers had a higher likelihood of purchasing.

2019 Holiday Season Takeaways and How to Use Them

Analyzing the 2019 holiday season does no good unless you implement the lessons learned to further your marketing program. From the takeaways above, here are opportunities for some marketing reflection and optimization throughout 2020:

$2B is the New Daily Ecommerce Sales Benchmark

Question: How do you plan to attract new customers and increase AOV to take advantage of this increase in consumer spending?

Email Marketing Needs to be a Major Program Component

Question: What specifically can you do to improve your email program throughout the year?

The Cyber Ten replaced the Cyber Five

Question: Do you have enough value-adds and promotional strategies to take full advantage of this extended sales period?

Smartphones Took Over Web Traffic, Getting There for Online Sales

Question: Are your website, emails, popup forms and paid search strategies optimized for mobile users?

Now is the time to dive deep into the types of offers customers responded to, the types and timing of automated email messages (i.e., abandoned cart, post-purchase, etc.), subject line tactics, paid search strategies, and the traffic sources and devices.

These tactics will allow you to test hypotheses and roadmap improvements to your overall marketing programs, giving you an early start on next year’s planning while driving increased sales year-round.

The Most Important Things to Know About Holiday Email Planning

The holiday shopping season is upon us and, like last year, this year is expected to once again break online sales records — reaching $142 billion, according to eMarketer. For companies big and small, email marketing is going to have a significant hand in helping drive those record sales.

But planning for a long holiday season takes consideration and time. Regardless of whether you’ve already started the planning process or not, here are some of the key things you need to prepare your email marketing program for a successful holiday season.

Gray November, Cyber Monday, and the Cyber Ten

Gray November is no longer a trend — it’s the norm. But this year it becomes a bit longer. There are fewer days, only 27, between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. Plan for a long month leading up to Black Friday Week.

The Cyber Ten

Last year, 19% of online holiday revenue was generated from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday, often referred to as the Cyber Five. Not surprisingly, these five days were the top five online sales days of the entire holiday season.

Twenty-three percent of Cyber Five sales came from email marketing. Looking at my inbox, the Sunday before Black Friday received the lowest number of emails for not only the entire week but for the following nine days. There is an opportunity to jump on early sales by increasing your email sends on this day.

But this year you should look beyond these five days and focus on a longer period. The ten-day period from November 24th to December 3rd will be an extremely busy shopping period. Let me introduce you to the Cyber Ten!

Here’s why:

• The day after Cyber Monday was the sixth busiest shopping day of the year, generating nearly $3 billion in online sales. This was only a slight difference from the fifth-busiest day.

• The day before Thanksgiving saw year-over-year growth of 32% and generated $1 billion in incremental sales. Expect this to be a major online sales day this year.

• Black Friday has finally morphed into Black Friday week, with many sales kicking off on the Monday before.

• The Sunday before Black Friday also saw an increase of $1 billion in incremental sales, meaning people were not only excited about the early deals but they shopped them.

Cyber Monday

Each year, Cyber Monday sets the record as the largest online sales day in history (nearly $8 billion in 2018). This year will be no exception. Your Cyber Monday email strategy should be to plan early and plan late.

• Last year more than half-a-billion was spent online by 7 a.m. PST.

• The most active shopping period of the entire year was from 7–11 p.m., ringing up $2 billion in online sales during that time.

• Last year, the Bronto Marketing Platform saw a 21% lift in year-over-year Cyber Monday emails sent, totaling more than a half-billion emails in one day. Plan on sending multiple emails!

• Many email marketers tend to relax a bit the day after — don’t. Remember, the day after is one of the biggest online sales days of the season.

Hot Promotions Of The Season

Throughout the holiday season, most retailers will run a multitude of discounts. According to Deloitte, the three most appealing discounts to shoppers last holiday season were price discounts, free shipping, and free gifts — and these were certainly noticeable last year.

Here are a few messaging strategies that were prominent last year, and that I expect to see this season too.

Daily deals

With holiday deals starting early, daily deals have always been a way to keep subscribers checking their emails. By offering special discounts on specific products or categories of products, subscribers may check their email more often to ensure they’re not missing anything.

One trend from last year was promoting categories that would be on sale throughout the entire campaign. For many of those that offered a week’s worth of daily deals (often coinciding with Black Friday week), they promoted at the onset which categories would be going on sale, and when. This way, subscribers who were planning on making a specific purchase could plan accordingly.

Free shipping

Free shipping became a major focal point in promotions last season. As mentioned, consumers found free shipping to be the second-most appealing promotional offer. This is likely why, according to eMarketer, there was a year-over-year increase of holiday orders that were shipped free, starting with Black Friday Week and continuing through Christmas Day.

As the season inched toward a close, free shipping — including expedited shipping — turned from an additional incentive to a primary one. While many retailers stipulated a minimum spend for the order, not all did. With free shipping, you have options to test.

Use free shipping as both an add-on incentive and a stand-alone one. Seeing as holiday discounts run for nearly two full months, using free shipping as a promotional tool may provide your program with another way to prevent your promotions from going stale.

Buy-online pickup in-store (BOPIS)

Forty-one percent of consumers reported using BOPIS last holiday season, and its year-over-year usage increased by 47% from November 1st through December 19th. According to the NRF, 64% of consumers choose BOPIS to avoid paying for shipping fees, which echoes consumers’ desire for free shipping promotions.

If you have the capability, promote your BOPIS service in your emails, on your website and in any other marketing channel you use — especially as the season winds down.

Last year, I saw retailers offering discounts for online and BOPIS-only orders to secure an immediate sale while still driving customers in-store, where 85% of shoppers said they made an unplanned purchase while picking up BOPIS orders.

Five Holiday Subject Line Strategies You Should Use

Knowing the inbox will be crowded throughout the holiday season, retailers must catch their subscribers’ attention. Emojis, even after all of these years, continue to be a good way to gain inbox attention. Here are a few ways to effectively use emojis in your email messages.

1. Use one single emoji to start the subject line. This can catch readers’ attention without being overwhelming or distracting.

2. Use repeating emojis to make the email pop. Don’t worry, this won’t cause deliverability problems.

3. Use emojis to bookend subject line text. In the same vein, using, increasing and decreasing sized emojis as you move toward and away from the text can make the text stand out even more – even if the emoji lacks color.

4. Include repeating emojis in the preheader text. This not only stands out in the inbox pane but also allows you to use more text in the subject line.

5. Use an emoji in the “send from” name. This is used far less often but adding color to the sender name can make your email stand out.

Three Other Notable Holiday Marketing Tips

• Ensure your emails and website are mobile-friendly. Mobile generated nearly 40% of online revenue last season and accounted for more than half of all retailer web traffic for the first time. It also accounted for more than $2 billion on Cyber Monday alone.

• The new benchmark is $2 billion. Last season, only four days (12/22-12/25) failed to reach the $1 billion daily benchmark but none missed by more than $120 million. It seems that $2 billion is becoming the new benchmark, with 26 days reaching that mark in 2018 – that’s nearly double from the year prior.

• Send on the weekends. According to my own inbox analysis, most Saturdays and Sundays in November recorded the lowest volume of email sends for the entire month. Even with lower send volumes, every day in November still recorded online sales of $1 billion. Bump up your email sends on these days to take advantage of a less crowded inbox.

There you have it, some Rudolph-approved holiday tidbits to help guide your email marketing program this holiday season — you didn’t think I’d forget the obligatory holiday cliché, did you?

Confessions of a Holiday Shopper: Why I Didn’t Wait Until Black Friday

This holiday season was predicted to be the best yet for online retailers – and it was. Fifty-eight out of 61 days drove over $1 billion in online sales, including every single day in November. Gray November, the month-long period of deep discounts, is now commonplace. But do people buy more or simply buy earlier?

This year, I wanted to find out how early discounts affected my own shopping behavior and see what lessons it might offer for retailers. So, I conducted a little experiment.

A Little Background

My yearly holiday shopping comes with a double whammy. See, my wife’s birthday falls one week before Christmas. After buying gifts for my wife and the kids, my digital wallet looks more like a countdown clock in an email message, getting smaller and smaller as the seconds tick away.

I traditionally draft my gift list a few days before Black Friday and then purchase over that weekend. But this year, I pivoted. Having tracked the Gray November phenomena over the past several years, I felt confident that the discounts would be just as strong prior to Black Friday weekend as during it.

You can’t write about holiday shopping (or conduct your own holiday shopping experiment) without addressing the elephant in the room – Amazon. Although I purchase from Amazon, I am not a Prime member. Am I allowed to say that? I guess the first step is admitting it. As a non-Prime member, here's what I was looking for in my shopping experience:

• Could other retailers compete with Amazon for my attention and wallet?

• Would I regret buying “early”

• Was Amazon the right retailer, or did someone else offer value or service that was better?

• In the end, how much wallet share would Amazon nab, and why?

Let the Purchasing Begin

Although my very first purchase took place on November 13, my primary shopping started on November 16. I completed 75% of my shopping prior to Thanksgiving Day and 92% prior to Black Friday.

To Amazon or Not to Amazon?

HitWise reported that Amazon accounted for 55% of Black Friday sales and 45% of Thanksgiving Day sales. For the holidays overall, GBH Insights estimates Amazon accounted for about a 50% share of online revenue.

For me, 33% of my purchases were made on Amazon, accounting for 11% of my wallet. However, my November 13 purchase was a one-time, big-ticket item. By removing this specialty purchase, the adjusted wallet share Amazon earned from me jumps to 29%. Even though money spent is money spent, I view this adjusted 29% as a more accurate number, as it's based on my typical gifting habits.

One of the main reasons I chose Amazon was the convenience of buying many diverse products in a single order at a price that was comparable to or better than a competitor’s. When the price was comparable, I mostly leaned toward Amazon for value-add reasons, such as my confidence in their customer service.

But Amazon certainly lost out on a few of my purchases. Twenty-five percent of the time, the price was higher. Another 25% of the time, I was concerned about the quality of the Amazon offerings (particularly the private-label offerings), and 17% of the time, Amazon didn’t carry what I was looking for.

My Black Friday purchases all came from Amazon. I purposely shopped for the items prior to Black Friday, placed them in my cart, and left them abandoned. The prices at this time were comparable to other sites, and I knew that come Black Friday, I’d get a deal somewhere. Interestingly enough, Amazon was the one that came through with the largest price drops.

Customer Service and the Consumer Experience

I had two notable customer service experiences while shopping. The first was from Amazon. For one purchase, I ordered a product that was fulfilled by Amazon. The product quantity showed there were six remaining. One full day after placing my order, I received an email from Amazon stating the item could not be fulfilled due to the product not being in stock. But the website still showed the product as in stock and ready to ship. Needless to say, I found this to be a very poor customer experience.

On November 18, I placed an order from a national omnichannel retailer. They had a 50% off sale on several items I was shopping for. However, one of the items on my list was not on sale. The question became: do I purchase now or wait to see if the other item goes on sale? I assessed the situation. Because they offered free shipping and free returns, I had nothing to lose. After all, if they discounted the item later, I could simply return the order and place a new one with all of the items on sale.

So I purchased, paying full price for the one item. The very next morning, the full-price item went on sale at 50% off. Because it was less than 24 hours since the order was placed, I emailed customer service asking if they would credit the difference. They declined to do so, instead instructing me to sign up for their emails so I don’t miss a future sale. Umm, OK. Instead, I let them incur the cost for not only shipping the new order but also processing the return. This incident reduces my chances of doing business with them in the future.

These two experiences highlight a lesson for retailers: Be sure the product counts on your website are accurate and that your customer service policies allow you to meet customer expectations. In both cases, I had a negative experience. For Amazon purchases, I’m skeptical of the value of paying for Prime. For the other retailer, knowing they won’t address a simple price adjustment gives me little confidence that they would satisfactorily address a more complex customer service issue.

Final Thoughts

I’m just one shopper, but I feel confident my buying behaviors are fairly representative – customer service and value trump price. Don’t leave the success of your business dependent on discounts. If you're a retailer, spend the next six months forging stronger relationships with your customers. Review your customer service policies. When issues arise, don’t just say you’re sorry. Go out of your way to make things right! Communicate value-adds that are meaningful for your customers.

When it comes to purchasing from you or a competitor, give shoppers a reason to choose you. If you rely on price alone, you’ll eventually lose.