Sales forecasts from Deloitte and Salesforce predict relatively rosy sales this holiday season, but not everyone is predicting a blockbuster holiday — and to be sure, there are reasons for concern.
Deloitte predicts that holiday sales in 2025 will rise by 2.9% to 3.4% compared to the previous year, reaching a total of between $1.61 and $1.62 trillion for the November-to-January time frame. That would, however, be a slower rate of growth than in 2024, when holiday sales grew 4.2%. Online sales also are predicted to rise according to Salesforce, which is forecasting a 4% year-over-year increase for the Nov. 1-Dec. 31 period, reaching a global total of $1.25 trillion.
But PwC’s 2025 holiday outlook is quite pessimistic. The analyst firm is predicting a 5% decrease in overall average consumer spend for the holiday, compared to the 7% increase during holiday 2024 compared to the previous season. PwC also is forecasting an 11% decrease in overall average gift spend (compared to the 4% increase seen the previous year), with a 23% year-over-year pullback in gift spending by Gen Z. Overall, PwC predicts that the average per-person spend will drop from $1,638 in 2024 to $1,152 in 2025.
One thing pretty much everyone seems to agree on is what the winners will be, namely resale and AI. As in nearly every other area of retailing, AI will be a major force during the upcoming season. Not only are more consumers already using the new set of AI-powered shopping assistants, but more are trusting the recommendations they get from them: a May survey by Salesforce indicated that 45% of those using AI for shopping trusted the bots’ recommendations; by August that number had nearly doubled, to 87%.
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Nervous Consumers and Tariff Unpredictability Could Darken the Forecast
So what is the cause of the discrepancies? For one thing, consumers, particularly those in the U.S., are jittery over likely price increases from tariff policies and other macroeconomic uncertainties, and they’ve already taken action. According to an August 2025 survey by Salesforce, one in three U.S. shoppers reported buying less over the previous six months, while 55% are prioritizing essentials and 68% are trading down for lower-priced goods.
Additionally, there are lots of unknowns this year for both retailers and consumers, hearkening back to the “uncharted territory” of the early COVID era. “There’s a ton of pent-up demand due to high interest rates, and there are supply chain challenges this year, with the added complexity of tariffs as another factor throwing a lot of uncertainty at the consumer,” said Schwartz. “There’s also labor market uncertainty, and whichever way that [eventually] goes, it could have a big impact on consumer spend.”
One bright spot is that, consumer concerns over the cost of living and the impact of tariffs also are contributing factors in the growth of resale. According to Salesforce, half of consumers said in August that they would be likely to gift a resale item this holiday season (representing a 4% increase compared to May). The result is predicted to be $64 billion in resale holiday sales.
“Resale is becoming a really popular channel, being driven especially by Gen Z and millennials,” said Caila Schwarz, Director of Strategy and Consumer Insights at Salesforce during a recent presentation. The largest group (70%) of resale purchasers cite saving money as a key motivator, with 33% expressing concern about product availability and 25% buying secondhand to support sustainability or to reduce waste.
Weedlike Growth of AI Reshaping Search, Discovery and Shopper Journeys
One of the things that pretty much all forecasters agree on is that AI will have an outsized influence on shopper journeys this season. AI-powered shopping assistants such as Amazon’s Rufus, Perplexity, Google’s Gemini and ChatGPT are becoming valued tools for a rapidly growing set of consumers.
While only a relatively small group of shoppers start their journeys with an AI assist (7% in August, according to Salesforce, up from 5% in May), one in five U.S. shoppers said they had used AI at some point in their purchase journeys over the previous six months. In July 2025 Salesforce projected that AI would drive $260 billion in online holiday sales and $1.6 trillion in in-store sales; now, Salesforce has increased its estimate of AI’s impact on global online sales to $263 billion. In the U.S. alone, AI-impacted online sales are forecast to reach $51 billion, which would represent 18% of all online sales.
Shoppers using AI are incorporating it at multiple points on their path to purchase. “These tools aren’t just relegated to the online buying journey; 57% of U.S. AI users are engaging an assistant in-store, and that figure is well over 60% for millennials and Gen Z,” said Schwartz. “AI assistants are having a profound impact on the shopping journey.”
AI assistant sources were responsible for a 119% year-over-year increase in online traffic during the first half of 2025, according to Salesforce, and that is traffic that any retailer or brand would welcome. These shoppers have a 700% higher conversion rate compared to those coming from social media, and a 200% higher conversion rate compared to all other sources of traffic. More than half (57%) of AI shoppers plan to use these tools for gift inspiration, with top search categories including apparel/accessories, footwear, health and beauty, electronics and food and beverage.
“These shoppers are highly qualified, and they’re very motivated to purchase when they get to the brand or retailer website. That’s likely due to a high degree of trust in the recommendations they’re getting,” said Schwartz, noting the dramatic increase in AI user trust between May and August, rising from 45% to 87%.
AI also has the potential to enhance the post-purchase experience. “We’re forecasting a 39% year-over-year increase in agentic customer service sessions this season — and a 2.5% reduction in service case interactions,” said Schwartz. “In [all our] years of tracking this, we’ve never seen a decrease. We believe the number of interactions and back-and-forths are going down, making it a lot quicker to resolve these cases. That means better outcomes for the consumer and more efficiency and optimization for the brand or retailer.”
