Consumers kicked off the primary half of 2025 with the identical vitality as they did in 2024 – cautious, calculated, and weary of looming financial challenges. The primary quarter’s gross sales outcomes mirrored this mindset.
On-line gross sales had been basically flat as customers continued to attend out value and financial volatility. Based on analysis by Salesforce, 51% of buyers reported that they’re at the moment prioritizing necessities and 49% are pulling again on splurge purchases, a development reported in 2024 and persevering with into the brand new yr.
The query on everybody’s thoughts: Is that this an indication of the vacation season to return? Early Salesforce information signifies that buyers could also be turning a nook. Thirty-four p.c of world customers reported that they’re feeling optimistic in regards to the present state of the financial system — that’s a 22% improve over April 2024. In relation to private funds, 27% extra customers reported that their monetary conditions had been bettering over the past six months. One other thrilling development we’re seeing shift is the place customers are spending their disposable earnings. For the previous 12 months customers have ranked financial savings and investments as the highest place they had been parking their cash. However now that’s modified. Customers at the moment are saying that they’re again to prioritizing spending their disposable incomes on bodily items, adopted by financial savings, with experiences final.
Regardless of these optimistic indicators, customers are nonetheless cautious. One in three buyers nonetheless report that they’re shopping for much less over the previous six months, and 66% of all buyers say that — no matter whether or not they’re shopping for extra, much less, or the identical — they’re buying and selling down for decrease priced items. Nonetheless, that’s a 22% lower from 2024 within the charge of customers reporting that they’re making tradedowns. Moreover, the speed of customers reporting that they’re now shopping for extra grew by 54% over 2024.
There’s extra excellent news, although. On this period of financial uncertainty, there may be additionally unimaginable alternative for customers and retailers alike, due to AI. From generative AI providers going mainstream again in 2023 to AI brokers in the present day, the best way customers work together with the web and the best way that retailers function is altering very quickly. All of this new change is ushering in a brand new wave of how manufacturers and customers work together with one another.
So what does vacation 2025 appear to be in a time of accelerating financial strain, quickly altering shopper optimism, and synthetic intelligence?
Our 2025 vacation buying predictions:
- Hyper-personalized product discovery is right here
- AI brokers will increase worker productiveness
- Unified commerce experiences will supercharge on-line and offline gross sales
- Commerce uncertainty will push buyers to resale, as promotions are reduce
- Worth and high quality will drive loyalty
Let’s take a more in-depth take a look at the info, together with our high suggestions on your most great time of the yr.
The best way folks store is evolving shortly. Based on analysis by Salesforce, 5% of all buyers now begin their product search with AI chat assistants (like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Meta AI, Grok, and so forth.). For Gen Z customers, that quantity jumps to 10%. Moreover, 39% of buyers report utilizing an AI chat in some unspecified time in the future throughout their buying journey. Even main browser suppliers are reporting that customers are choosing these new age search instruments over conventional search. Why are buyers leaning into these instruments? As a result of it provides them the most effective personalised product suggestions.
These instruments are now not simply useful add-ons or meme-makers, they’re turning into the bridge between clients and types, powering a brand new period of hyper-personalized, real-time buying experiences. Fifty-nine p.c of buyers utilizing AI chat providers for product suggestions count on to make use of these instruments to assist them discover presents for family and friends this vacation. They usually belief these suggestions too, with solely 21% of customers reporting that they mistrust the suggestions from these instruments. They usually’re not simply utilizing them within the digital world. Thirty p.c of world customers report utilizing an AI chat assistant whereas buying in brick-and-mortar retail shops. And for Gen Z and Millennials, that quantity is over 40%.
Day by day AI utilization amongst workplaces has elevated 233% since October 2024.
Customers now count on suggestions that take their wants into consideration, conversations that really feel human, and help that’s accessible on their phrases wherever and at any time when they want it. For retailers, this shift presents each a problem and a large alternative. The manufacturers that embrace AI as a strategic accomplice in buyer engagement would be the ones that stand out, and win, this vacation season.
This vacation season, we predict that $260B in on-line gross sales and $1.6T in in-store gross sales will likely be pushed by buyers discovering merchandise by way of AI-powered suggestions.
What you are able to do: Consider the place you’d like your model to indicate up relating to AI chat assistants. Because the chat assistants get extra common, clients will come to count on this type of personalised one on one buying expertise. Drive conversions and loyalty with a guided buying agent by yourself web site that guides buyers by way of discovery and offers personalised product suggestions.
AI isn’t simply disrupting the consumer expertise, AI brokers are poised to enhance the worker expertise as nicely. In an age the place budgets are shrinking and margins are tightening, serving to your workforce change into much more efficient is paramount. What are AI brokers? AI brokers are like AI-powered coworkers that may function independently, with out human intervention, and make choices primarily based on all of the accessible information and their skilled parameters.
Analysis by Salesforce exhibits that retailers are more and more leveraging AI brokers to revolutionize each customer-facing interactions and backend operations. For patrons, AI brokers present extremely personalised buying experiences by analyzing shopping historical past, buy patterns, and even real-time buying alerts to supply tailor-made product suggestions, reply intricate questions, and information them by way of the buying journey with a conversational interface. On the backend, AI brokers are already redefining productiveness. Immediately, brokers are serving to with stock administration, dynamic pricing, optimizing provide chains, offering actual time fraud monitoring, streamlining order success autonomously, amongst many different duties.
The excellent news is that analysis by Salesforce exhibits that these new digital employees aren’t solely bettering office productiveness, however they’re additionally making the human workforce extra environment friendly. Day by day AI utilization amongst workplaces has elevated 233% since October 2024. Since then, staff utilizing AI to assist increase their workday are 64% extra productive than their friends and report 81% higher job satisfaction. The highest three ways in which staff report AI has made them extra productive are by eliminating the necessity for intensive analysis, aiding with writing/communication, and serving to brainstorm to beat inventive blocks.
This vacation season, we predict that 35% of shops will likely be utilizing agentic AI to spice up their office and worker productiveness.
What you are able to do: Step one in launching an efficient agentic AI technique is to get your information prepped and related. Prepared buyer information for trusted and safe entry by breaking down information silos and harmonizing information throughout purposes.
Whereas digital channels had a meteoric rise over the past 5 years, bodily shops stay the dominant retail gross sales channel, accounting for a exceptional 83% of all retail gross sales in 2024. That being mentioned, it doesn’t should be an both/or situation. Buying journeys have gotten extremely advanced, scattered, and disjointed. Actually, in accordance with analysis by Salesforce, the common shopper interacts with a model 9 completely different occasions earlier than making a single buy. In simply the final three months, 80% of customers have made at the very least one buy in a retailer, 83% on-line, and 24% on a social media platform. It’s now essential for retailers to facilitate a seamless buying expertise that transcends particular person channels, units, and areas, permitting customers to work together with their model fluidly.
The vacation season is an particularly necessary second for brick-and-mortar shops. Whereas Cyber Week has been hallmarked as a digital buying occasion, customers are nonetheless headed to the shop. When requested the place buyers will purchase this upcoming vacation season, the primary response throughout all generations was brick-and-mortar shops, adopted intently by on-line marketplaces. Actually, 79% of vacation buyers report that they are going to be buying in retailer this upcoming vacation season, whereas 78% will likely be buying throughout on-line marketplaces. Even three in 4 Gen Z buyers will likely be hitting up shops this yr. Actually, on an important buying days of the yr buyers desire the shop. Fifty-one p.c of buyers report that they nonetheless desire to buy in retailer on Black Friday, up from 31% in 2024. Gen Z is main that development with an unimaginable 65% reporting their in retailer choice for the key deal occasion. That places them approach forward of the 30% of Child Boomers who reported a choice for brick-and-mortar Black Friday buying.
Seventy-six p.c of buyers report that they’re ready for Cyber Week to make large purchases this yr.
Why are the youngest generations gravitating to brick-and-mortar? Immediacy, expertise, and product discovery are the highest three components driving buyers to shops. Seventy-two p.c of Gen Z buyers report with the ability to get their merchandise instantly as their high motive for selecting the shop, beating out all different generations within the want for velocity. In the meantime, 42% of Gen Zers like to the touch and really feel the merchandise earlier than buying and 28% reporting it’s simpler to browse and uncover new merchandise in retailer.
Why is that this necessary? Understanding how and the place buyers are shopping for lets retailers meet them the place they’re, with the appropriate expertise tailor-made to every channel. Most significantly, on this new period of AI-led buying, having a strong, unified commerce technique is essential to making sure AI-driven, personalised experiences are supported by real-time stock and constant information throughout all channels. With out it, the promise of AI-enhanced personalization falters attributable to fragmented data and inconsistent service. And in an age the place the youngest shopper generations are calling for extra alternative and variety in the place they store, the stakes are even larger.
This vacation season, we predict that for each $1 that Gen Z spends on-line, they may spend $3 extra in-store this vacation season, making brick-and-mortar a essential channel for achievement with youthful generations.
What you are able to do: Whereas the youngest buyers desire to buy in retailer, they’re the more than likely to be discovering and researching throughout many digital channels. Allow your viewers to buy your model, not your channels by having a sturdy omni-channel technique. This isn’t simply a bonus, however a necessity to domesticate loyalty and seize market share.
Provide chain uncertainty has dominated headlines since 2020, however in 2025 tariffs are placing much more strain on retailers and customers alike. Tariffs are squeezing already tight margins for retailers. The ending of de minimis and looming value will increase are placing customers on discover because the already cost-conscious inhabitants is lastly feeling some optimism. Nevertheless it’s not simply pricing that’s high of thoughts. Tariff showdowns are prone to trigger stock shortages later this yr as retailers cancel orders and shifting provide chains ship shockwaves to product availability.
Regardless of tariffs, customers are used to pivoting their shopping for conduct attributable to volatility within the provide chain. It wasn’t way back that first, center, and last-mile provide chain points put the vacation season in flux yr after yr. This yr is not any completely different.
When requested how tariffs are impacting their buying habits, 40% of world buyers mentioned that they’re simply shopping for necessities proper now whereas they wait out the commerce implications. One other 26% mentioned that they’re holding again on splurge purchases. Within the US, 43% of buyers are reporting a doubling down on necessities, whereas 32% are stocking up on the objects they want earlier than value modifications go into impact. Nonetheless, regardless of the noise, 23% of world buyers don’t make any modifications to their shopping for habits proper now, pushed by the far more economically-resilient Child Boomer era and high-income earners normally. However one factor is totally clear, the common shopper is paying consideration they usually’re making modifications.
What does this imply for the vacation shopper? They’re going to be searching for methods to get the presents they need at the most effective value attainable. A method they’ll get these low costs is by ready. Seventy-six p.c of buyers report that they’re ready for Cyber Week to make large purchases this yr. That is up from 67% of buyers who reported ready for Cyber Week offers final yr. The second approach buyers will search higher pricing is by turning to resale. Seventeen p.c of buyers report that they’re turning to resale objects as a strategy to fight tariff volatility. And it’s not only for their on a regular basis wants. Forty-six p.c of buyers report that they’re planning on shopping for a beforehand owned merchandise as a way to give as a present over the following six months.
Why the draw to resale? Sixty-eight p.c of buyers say that gifting resale permits them to economize, whereas 35% report it permits them to observe sustainability and cut back waste. Actually, pricing and sustainability had been the highest two the explanation why buyers are selecting resale throughout each single era. In the meantime, product availability got here in third as stock shortage continues to weigh on buyers.
This vacation season, we predict that buyers will spend $64B on resold merchandise as they appear to chop prices and cut back waste. In response to rising provide chain prices, season promotionality will reduce as 2% fewer orders will transact with a promotional code.
What you are able to do: Assessment and regulate your pricing methods, negotiate with suppliers, improve provide chain visibility, and optimize success with out compromising the shopper expertise. Take a long-term method to defending revenue margins in these market situations, relatively than choosing fast fixes.
Attracting and retaining loyal clients is a steady course of that retailers spend years constructing, perfecting, and evolving. What drives buyer loyalty has modified drastically each single yr since 2020, and that development continues. As budgets stay tight and uncertainty looms, buyers will likely be turning to manufacturers and retailers that ship what they want. This yr, loyalty will likely be outlined by two foremost issues: value and high quality. Worth sensitivity has been high of thoughts for a while now as customers battle inflation. When requested what components will affect their determination to purchase from one retailer over the following in 2025, free supply and decrease costs are on the high of the listing. A brand new issue, nevertheless, has snuck in below the radar—product high quality—because the third most necessary issue.
Why product high quality? Since Salesforce has been monitoring this metric, product high quality hasn’t reached the highest of the listing because the Covid period, when customers had extra shopping for energy. In 2025, it’s again to the highest. For these watching the drop delivery craze of 2024, it’s seemingly not a shock that buyers would finally crave higher high quality merchandise. As properties stuffed up with low-cost items, and as de minimis exemptions finish, customers are turning again to merchandise that may stand the check of time.
The nice information is that buyers additionally appear to wish to keep loyal. The speed of purchases coming from repeat buyers continues to develop in 2025, with Q1 seeing a 6% year-over-year improve on this metric. As buying experiences and loyalty applications proceed to enhance, customers are consolidating their purchases with their favourite manufacturers. For this vacation season, this implies paying shut consideration to your current clients and delivering on the experiences and worth they’re searching for.
This vacation season, we predict that loyal buyers will spend 20% extra this vacation in comparison with each new shopper acquired.
What you are able to do: Guarantee you might be delivering in your model’s guarantees by way of pricing and product high quality, and effectively create personalised engagements in your buyer recognition and rewards applications using a Loyalty Administration suite.
As we transfer into an period of hyper-personalized discovery and shopping, led by a conversational interface, commerce is on the precipice of main change. Not solely is shopper conduct altering shortly, expectations are rising because the partitions between channels proceed to blur.
This season will undoubtedly be aggressive because the business seems to be to seize pockets share from price-sensitive customers. A unified commerce journey is paramount to delivering on the clever, related, and personalised journeys that buyers are demanding.
