Halloween decorations are coming down, Christmas displays are taking over, and retailers are preparing for the busiest shopping weeks of the year.
The good news? Americans are still planning to spend.
The National Retail Federation’s 2026 holiday forecast predicts U.S. retail sales will reach $1.013 trillion in November and December, up 4.2% from last year.
But shoppers are paying closer attention to where their money goes. They’re comparing prices, starting their gift lists earlier, and looking for deals that feel worth the purchase.
For brands, that makes the next few weeks especially interesting. There’s plenty of demand to capture, but a crowded inbox and another 20% off promotion probably won’t be enough.
Here’s what the latest U.S. holiday shopping trends tell us about the season ahead, and how marketers can use them to build smarter campaigns.
What Halloween 2026 Tells Us About Holiday Shopping
Before getting into Black Friday and Christmas, it’s worth looking at Halloween.
According to the NRF’s 2026 Halloween consumer survey, Americans were expected to spend $13.5 billion on Halloween this year, compared with the record $13.1 billion spent in 2025.
The final spending results aren’t available yet, but the pre-holiday research offers a useful look at consumer behavior.
Nearly half of shoppers (49%) planned to start buying Halloween items in September or earlier. Discount stores remained the most popular shopping destination, and consumers were increasingly interested in reusable decorations, price comparisons, and promotions.
Halloween also showed how shopping inspiration is changing. Almost half of respondents reported using AI tools to help plan purchases, brainstorm ideas, or research products.
These habits matter beyond October.
Consumers are willing to participate in seasonal celebrations, even when budgets feel tight. They’re simply becoming more deliberate about how they shop.
For marketers planning holiday campaigns, that suggests an opportunity to reach people earlier, help them compare options, and give them useful reasons to choose a brand.
The 2026 Holiday Shopping Outlook: Bigger Budgets, Higher Expectations
This year’s holiday spending forecasts are encouraging, although the numbers tell a more complicated story. The 2026 Deloitte Holiday Retail Survey expects average U.S. household holiday spending to reach $1,654, a 4% increase from 2025.
At the same time, 79% of surveyed consumers expect higher prices, and nearly four in ten qualify as holiday value seekers: shoppers who actively use promotions, rewards, and lower-cost alternatives.
Interestingly, those value seekers expect to spend 12% more than other shoppers.
There’s a useful lesson here. People looking for discounts aren’t necessarily unwilling to spend. Many are prepared to make larger purchases when they feel they’re getting a good deal.
The opportunity extends to online retail, too.
Forrester’s 2026 holiday retail forecast expects U.S. holiday e-commerce sales to grow 11.6% year over year, with online shopping accounting for nearly 60% of incremental holiday retail growth.
That’s a lot of potential traffic. Turning it into sales will depend on how well brands respond to changing shopping habits.
5 Holiday Marketing Strategies to Increase Sales in 2026
1. Make Your Promotions Worth Paying Attention To
Shoppers have become very familiar with holiday discounts. They’ve also become pretty good at recognizing when a promotion isn’t particularly special.
A generic sale might attract a few clicks, but brands have more options than simply lowering prices across the board.
Consider offering exclusive bundles, limited-time gifts with purchase, loyalty rewards, or early access for existing customers. These approaches can create a stronger sense of value without requiring the same discount on every product.
It also helps to explain the offer clearly. If a bundle saves customers money, show the savings. If an item is available only for a limited period, make the deadline easy to find.
The strongest holiday promotions make the buying decision easier.
2. Treat Black Friday as Part of a Longer Shopping Season
Black Friday is still a major retail event, but holiday shopping starts well before Thanksgiving. Consumers are already browsing gift guides, saving products, comparing prices, and waiting for their preferred retailers to announce deals.
According to Adobe’s 2026 holiday shopping forecast, U.S. online sales are expected to reach $275.1 billion during November and December.
Adobe also projects $12.9 billion in online spending on Black Friday and $15.1 billion on Cyber Monday. For marketers, this makes campaign timing especially important.
Start building interest before the biggest promotional days. Use early November to introduce gift collections, highlight popular products, and encourage shoppers to save their favorites.
Then use Black Friday and Cyber Monday to convert that interest through targeted offers, retargeting campaigns, and timely email reminders. And don’t forget December. Last-minute shoppers still need gifts, shipping information, and convenient options.
3. Make Gift Discovery Easier
Holiday shoppers often arrive with a budget and a vague idea of what they want.
Maybe they’re shopping for a parent who already has everything. Maybe they need a gift for a coworker. Maybe they’re trying to find something thoughtful for under $50.
Brands can help by organizing products around these situations. Gift guides, curated collections, quizzes, and short product demonstrations can make browsing easier and help shoppers discover products they might otherwise overlook.
Think about the questions people are asking during the season:
- What are the best gifts under $50?
- What should I buy for someone who loves cooking?
- Which products are worth buying on Black Friday?
- What gifts can arrive before Christmas?
These are also useful topics for holiday SEO content, especially when brands create pages that match real search intent and connect directly to relevant products.
A useful gift guide can attract search traffic, support email campaigns, and give social media audiences somewhere to go when they’re ready to shop.
4. Give Social Content a Bigger Role in the Shopping Journey
Social media is doing plenty of work during the holiday season, particularly when it comes to product discovery.
People are watching gift recommendations, saving product videos, following creators, and sharing ideas with friends. That gives brands opportunities to reach shoppers before they have a specific product in mind.
Short-form videos showing products in use, creator gift guides, customer reviews, and behind-the-scenes content can all help customers imagine a product in their own lives.
The key is to make the content useful or entertaining enough to earn attention. A creator demonstrating how a product solves a common holiday problem may be more persuasive than another polished promotional graphic.
Brands should make the next step simple. Product tags, clear landing pages, and consistent messaging between social posts and product pages can reduce the distance between discovery and purchase.
5. Don’t Let Checkout Ruin the Holiday Spirit
After all the work that goes into attracting holiday shoppers, losing them during checkout is especially frustrating.
Unexpected shipping costs, confusing return policies, slow mobile pages, and unclear delivery estimates can give customers a reason to reconsider.
As the holidays get closer, practical details become increasingly important:
Can the order arrive before Christmas? Is gift wrapping available? Can customers pick it up in-store? What happens if the recipient wants to exchange it?
These questions deserve prominent answers on product pages, in checkout flows, and in holiday email campaigns.
Brands should also pay attention to mobile shopping experiences. A campaign might generate excellent traffic, but complicated navigation or a slow checkout can quickly undermine those results. A smoother buying experience is one of the most practical holiday conversion strategies available.
What Should Marketers Prioritize Before Black Friday?
With Thanksgiving approaching, there’s still time to make meaningful improvements without rebuilding an entire holiday marketing strategy.
Start by reviewing which products and categories are already attracting interest. Look at search behavior, product page engagement, abandoned carts, and email performance.
From there, focus on the changes most likely to help shoppers make decisions. That might mean improving a high-traffic gift guide, simplifying a promotional landing page, refreshing paid social creative, or creating a more useful abandoned-cart email sequence.
It also helps to separate campaigns by shopping intent.
Someone researching Christmas gifts in early November probably needs different messaging from someone looking for a last-minute deal on Cyber Monday.
The more closely a campaign reflects where the customer is in the shopping process, the more relevant it becomes.
Make the Most of the 2026 Holiday Shopping Season
The outlook for U.S. holiday retail is promising. Consumers are planning to spend, online shopping continues to grow, and seasonal promotions remain a major part of purchasing decisions.
But there are plenty of brands competing for those same dollars.
The next few weeks are an opportunity to improve how customers discover products, understand offers, and move from browsing to buying.
At Carney, we help brands connect strategy, creative, content, and performance marketing to make those opportunities count. Whether you’re preparing a holiday campaign, improving your digital customer experience, or planning for the year ahead, we’d love to help.
