Black Friday statistics 2026: Consumer insights and trends

Black Friday 2025 shoppers broke every spending record on the books – $11.8 billion in a single day, up 9.1% year over year – while telling researchers they’d never felt more squeezed; Deloitte’s confidence tracking, running since 1997, hit its lowest point yet.

Shoppers kept spending anyway, but got pickier about where the money went: price-checking with chatbots, waiting for the right bundle, and routing more research through AI tools than ever – traffic from generative AI grew 693.4% year over year.

For a small or mid-sized ecommerce store gearing up for Black Friday 2026, here’s what 2025 actually looked like – sales, mobile behavior, generational splits, and conversion drivers – as the baseline for your 2026 plan, checked against Hostinger’s own 2024 consumer survey.

Key Black Friday statistics for 2026

Everything below is what actually happened in the 2025 season – the baseline this year’s Black Friday strategy should start from.

1. US online holiday sales for the full 2025 season (not just Black Friday itself) reached $257.8 billion, up 6.8% year over year.
2. A record 202.9 million shoppers turned out over the 2025 Thanksgiving-to-Cyber-Monday weekend.
3. Cyber Week online sales hit $44.2 billion, up 7.7% year over year. Black Friday itself set the single-day record within that window, at $11.8 billion – the fourth consecutive year that record has been broken.
4. 92% of Gen Z shoppers planned to shop Black Friday or Cyber Monday in 2025, well above the 82% overall shopper participation rate.
5. Average spend per shopper over Thanksgiving weekend reached $337.86, up 7% from $315.56 in 2024 and the highest since 2019.
6. Buy Now, Pay Later purchases totaled $20 billion across the 2025 season, up 9.8% year over year.
7. 22% of shoppers planned to increase their holiday spending despite persistent inflation concerns.
8. Affiliates and partners drove 20.4% of full-season online revenue, up 15.9% year over year.
9. Traffic to retail sites from generative AI tools grew 693.4% year over year during the 2025 season.
10. Consumers planned to spend $622 on average over Black Friday–Cyber Monday weekend specifically, down 4% from 2024, even as overall season spending hit records.

Hostinger’s Black Friday study: Key insights

Hostinger surveyed 1,000 US consumers in 2024 about their Black Friday habits – 82% said they planned to shop that year – the same 82% overall participation rate that showed up in 2025’s actual numbers above. That overlap is why this older data still holds up as a baseline.

• 31% of US shoppers intended to increase their spending, reflecting stronger consumer optimism than in 2023 (Hostinger).
• Nearly 30% of respondents shopped exclusively online. With that many shoppers never setting foot in a store, selling across every channel they actually use – your own site, social, or just a shareable link – matters more than ever, which is the idea behind Hostinger Ecommerce (Hostinger).
• 59% of US consumers said email marketing influenced their purchase decisions, delivering an 8% conversion rate and 36–50 ROI per dollar spent (Hostinger).
• Gen Z and Millennials prioritized fashion and sustainable brands, while Baby Boomers focused more on toys and gifts (Hostinger).

Two threads from 2024 – the pull toward online-only shopping and email’s outsized ROI – show up again, amplified, in the 2025 numbers above.

Black Friday spending and sales trends

Black Friday 2025 set new sales records, extending the momentum built in 2024. Spending kept growing steadily, and shoppers stayed engaged even with economic pressures weighing on them.

• Cyber Monday 2025 remained the single biggest online shopping day of the season, at $14.25 billion, a 7.1% increase over 2024. Black Friday’s own growth rate outpaced it, though, climbing 9.1% to $11.8 billion (Adobe).
• Cyber Week 2025 generated $44.2 billion in online sales. The 7.7% year-over-year growth shows just how much weight the extended holiday period now carries (Adobe).
• Consumers planned to spend $1,595 on average across the full holiday season, down 10% from $1,778 in 2024. This is Deloitte’s broadest measure of holiday spending intent, distinct from the narrower BFCM-weekend figure below (Deloitte).
• Only 22% of shoppers planned to spend more this season, down from the 31% who planned increased spending in Hostinger’s 2024 study (Experian).
• Average Thanksgiving-weekend spending reached $337.86 per shopper. The 7% increase from 2024’s $315.56 is the highest since 2019, even as planned BFCM-specific spend fell to $622 per shopper (NRF).
• Holiday ecommerce sales were forecast at 305–310.7 billion for the season (Deloitte), but the tracked online-only actual came in lower, at $257.8 billion (Adobe) – a reminder that a pre-season projection and a tracked actual aren’t measuring quite the same thing.
• Black Friday is closing the gap on Cyber Monday: its share of the five-day Cyber 5 window grew to 26.7% in 2025, while Cyber Monday’s share slipped to 32.2%, its second straight year of decline (Digital Commerce 360).
• Holiday shoppers planned to spend 56% of their retail budget online and 44% in-store. Higher-income shoppers and younger generations were more likely to shop online than others (Deloitte).

Taken together, growth here isn’t stalling but actually concentrating into fewer, sharper moments. Black Friday keeps closing in on Cyber Monday’s longtime lead, even as shoppers trim how much they say they’ll spend across the season as a whole.

The single day is becoming the moment that counts most; the job is making sure the right offer is live on it.

What’s shaping shoppers’ budgets

That tighter budget isn’t abstract – here’s what’s actually squeezing it:

• Consumer confidence hit its lowest point in nearly 30 years. 77% of surveyed shoppers expected higher prices on holiday items, up from 69% in 2024, and 57% expected the US economy to weaken in the next year – the most negative outlook Deloitte has recorded since it began tracking sentiment in 1997 (Deloitte).
• Consumer spending is outpacing income growth. Personal income rose $95.7 billion and personal consumption expenditures rose $129.2 billion in August 2025 alone – spending growing faster than income, which suggests households are dipping into savings to keep up (US Bureau of Economic Analysis).
• Inflation reaccelerated through the year. After cooling to 2.3% in April 2025, the annual inflation rate climbed back to 3% by September (US Bureau of Labor Statistics).
• Online price deflation is narrowing. Ecommerce prices are still falling year over year, but the drop has slowed considerably, from a low of -5.9% in January 2024 to -2.3% more recently, leaving retailers less room to discount as deeply as before (Adobe).
• Ecommerce keeps taking share from physical retail. Online sales reached $300 billion in Q1 2025 and $304 billion in Q2, pushing ecommerce’s share of total US retail to 16.3% – its highest point since the 2020 pandemic surge (US Census Bureau).

That price-consciousness isn’t just a survey answer – it’s already changing how people shop:

Expert tip

With inflation squeezing budgets again, we’re seeing shoppers lean on chatbots earlier in their research, comparing prices and checking for a better deal before committing to a purchase. A store that can answer ‘is this really the best price’ instantly has a real edge with a more cautious shopper this year.

Ričardas Kudirka

Product Manager, Chatbots

Black Friday sales keep setting records, but they’re happening against a tighter budget backdrop than in years past. Shoppers still expect a good deal, they’re just being far more selective about which one is worth dipping into savings for.

Black Friday consumer behavior and shopping preferences

68% of holiday shoppers planned to lean on digital tools – social media, generative AI, price comparison sites, or chatbots – before deciding what to buy and where, and half also planned to check reviews first (Deloitte). 

That same research-first instinct shows up across how, when, and where people actually shopped in 2025.

• 70% of holiday shoppers planned to shop during Thanksgiving week in 2025, up from 68% in 2024. The 100K–199K income group showed the highest intent to participate, at 77% (Deloitte).
• 50% of holiday shoppers planned to spend most of their budget at online retailers or mass merchants, ahead of big-box retailers (39%), digital-first retailers (36%), and specialty retailers (20%) (Deloitte).
• 58% of shoppers considered holiday gift shopping stressful, and 77% said they usually feel frustrated while shopping online. Slow or delayed shipping (37%) and out-of-stock items (36%) were the top frustrations (Deloitte).
• Within the record 202.9 million shoppers who turned out over Thanksgiving weekend, Black Friday alone split 85.7 million online against 80.3 million in-store (NRF).
• 53% of holiday shopping remained unfinished after Thanksgiving weekend in 2025, similar to the 52% left over in 2024, pointing to strong sales potential through December (NRF).

Shoppers want both online convenience and in-store experience, so a plan built around only one channel leaves money on the table. 

Many are also turning to GenAI tools to hunt for deals and compare prices before they buy – and a majority say online shopping frustrates them along the way. 

Retailers who fix friction points like shipping delays and stock visibility, while showing up clearly in those AI-assisted searches, stand to capture sales that would otherwise slip into December.

Black Friday mobile and device usage

Mobile crossed the halfway mark for an entire holiday season for the first time in 2025: 56.4% of all online sales happened on a phone, up from 54.5% in 2024 (Adobe).

• On individual peak days, mobile’s share ran well above that season average: 61.6% on Thanksgiving Day (up from 59.3% in 2024), rising to 66.5% on Christmas Day (Adobe).
• Roughly 70% of global Cyber Week orders were placed on mobile devices (Salesforce). For stores that need a scalable backbone to handle that traffic without slowdowns, VPS hosting deals give growing ecommerce sites dedicated resources during peak demand.
• 82.2% of all Buy Now, Pay Later orders this season were placed on mobile, reinforcing that mobile is now the default checkout device for BNPL shoppers specifically (Adobe).
• By 2028, Gen Z mobile payment users are projected to reach 50 million, up from 32.8 million in 2024 – 37.7% of all mobile proximity-payment users, and a strong signal Gen Z is the first mobile-payments-native generation (EMARKETER).
• The research-first habits covered above – chatbots, price comparisons, reviews – largely play out on a phone too, which is a big part of why the purchase journey increasingly starts well before checkout (Deloitte).

Mobile optimization is not optional for Black Friday success. With mobile now the preferred checkout device for most shoppers, businesses that prioritize responsive design, fast load times, and app-quality experiences are better positioned to capture the growing share of mobile sales.

Black Friday demographics and generational differences

Gen Z posted the highest generational turnout for Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2025, at 92% – well above the 82% overall participation rate – but also pulled back hardest on spending, cutting planned budgets by 34% year over year. Millennials cut back a comparatively modest 13% (Deloitte).

• Which day each generation shows up for varies too: Gen Z gravitated toward Black Friday itself, while Millennials were more drawn to Cyber Monday – meaning a single blanket campaign across the Cyber 5 window won’t land the same way with both groups (Deloitte).
• 72% of Gen Z planned to shop in-store on Black Friday, compared to 49% of shoppers overall – despite being digital natives, Gen Z shows a strong pull toward the in-person Black Friday experience specifically (Deloitte).
• 74% of Gen Z relied on social media for holiday shopping inspiration, and 43% planned to use generative AI, both well above the overall shopper averages (Deloitte).
• Facebook is the preferred platform for 53% of Millennial shoppers. TikTok Shop leads among Gen Z, attracting 40% of users (Hostinger’s social commerce statistics).

Retailers targeting Gen Z should prioritize social and AI-assisted discovery channels like TikTok Shop, while still preparing for strong in-store turnout on Black Friday itself. 

Millennials, by contrast, remain more reachable through Facebook and are relatively more likely to shop Cyber Monday specifically.

Black Friday marketing and conversion drivers

AI-referred shoppers converted 31% higher than non-AI traffic in 2025 – nearly double the 2024 gap – with conversions running 54% higher on Thanksgiving and 38% higher on Black Friday specifically (Adobe). Showing up well in AI-assisted searches isn’t a nice-to-have anymore; it’s already converting better than traditional traffic.

Getting found is only half of it – preparing your ecommerce store for Black Friday traffic makes sure those campaigns don’t outrun your site’s capacity.

• Free shipping, promotions, and positive reviews remain the top conversion drivers, turning browsing into purchases (NRF). 
• Impulse purchases accounted for 33% of transactions in Hostinger’s 2024 study, a reminder that spontaneous spending is still a real factor (Hostinger).
• BNPL services generated $1.03 billion in Cyber Monday sales alone in 2025 – a 4.2% year-over-year increase and the first time BNPL crossed $1 billion in a single day (Adobe).
• That same AI-traffic surge noted earlier (693.4% year over year across the full season) hit 670% specifically on Cyber Monday – growth off a much larger base than 2024’s early surge, not a slowdown (Adobe).
• Affiliates and partners drove 21.8% of Cyber Monday revenue specifically, up 7.4% year over year – on top of the 20.4% full-season share already noted above (Adobe).

Nowhere does that shift from generic to specific pay off more than in email:

Expert tip

When shoppers are watching every dollar, generic discount messaging doesn’t move the needle anymore. What converts is showing someone the exact bundle or upgrade that solves their specific problem, and email is still the channel where that kind of targeted follow-up feels personal instead of pushy.

Miglė Padelytė

Product Manager, Reach

Successful Black Friday marketing combines multiple channels with strategic incentives. Free shipping and positive reviews drive conversions, while smart bundling and tiered pricing help retailers protect margins as discount depth narrows.

The future of Black Friday

24% of shoppers’ budgets were already exhausted by the end of October 2025 – up from 20% in 2024, the highest share in five years (Deloitte). Black Friday isn’t the single event it used to be; by the time it arrives, a quarter of the season’s budget is often already gone.

• AI agents and agentic commerce influenced 20% of all Cyber Week 2025 purchases globally, worth $67 billion. Retailers building their own AI agents saw sales grow 32% faster than those without (Salesforce).
• Social commerce has moved past being just a discovery tool and turned into a real sales channel. TikTok Shop alone drove over $500 million in US sales across the 2025 Black Friday-to-Cyber-Monday window, with nearly 50% more buyers than the year before (TikTok Newsroom).

That same agent influence is increasingly ending in a completed purchase, not just research:

Expert tip

AI agents are moving from browsing on a shopper’s behalf to placing real orders during Cyber Week. Retailers who make their product data easy for an agent to read and compare will show up in those transactions. The ones who don’t risk becoming invisible to a growing slice of holiday buyers.

Tomas Rasymas

Head of AI

The shopping season keeps stretching longer, and the shoppers inside it are increasingly mobile-first and AI-assisted. Together, that puts real strain on your infrastructure, which needs to be reliable and able to scale well before the traffic arrives, not during it. Hostinger’s Black Friday deals cover the hosting, domains, and tools to get there.

This article is a localized version of Black Friday statistics 2026: Consumer insights and trends, originally published in English.

The author

Ricardo Meneses Flores

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Ricardo is a data journalist and visualization expert with over seven years of experience uncovering insights through data storytelling. His work focuses on data exploration, geospatial analysis, and interactive visualizations, helping audiences understand complex information through compelling narratives. His projects have been featured in Statista, Forbes, La Nación, among others. When he’s not analyzing datasets, Ricardo enjoys brewing specialty coffee, watching sports, and reading fiction. Follow him on LinkedIn or check his Portfolio to see his latest work.

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