Adobe Forecasts $275B Holiday Online Sales, Furniture Up 7.3%

Adobe forecast on Sept. 28 that U.S. shoppers will spend a record $275.1 billion online from Nov. 1 through Dec. 31, up 6.7% from last year.

For a high-ticket store owner, the numbers that matter sit further down the release. Adobe expects furniture to reach $33.4 billion, up 7.3%, which beats the overall pace, and it expects buy now, pay later spending to hit $21.3 billion. At Ecommerce Paradise, the question I ask of any forecast is what it does to a store selling big-ticket goods, and this one touches your ad budget, your checkout, and your product data within weeks.

Below you get the Adobe numbers with baselines, the forecasts from Deloitte and eMarketer that disagree with parts of it, my read on what the gap means, and five moves to make before Amazon’s October Prime event, which Adobe puts at Oct. 6 and 7. If you are new to the model, start with my explainer on what high-ticket dropshipping is.

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Adobe Forecasts $275.1B in Holiday Online Sales, Up 6.7%

Adobe published the forecast on Sept. 28, 2026, and it covers Nov. 1 through Dec. 31. According to Adobe’s press release, the total is $275.1 billion, up 6.7% year over year. Chain Store Age reported the 2025 baseline as $257.8 billion.

Adobe says the forecast draws on more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites, 100 million SKUs and 18 product categories. It also ran a consumer survey of 5,000 respondents fielded in July 2026.

The calendar breaks down like this, all per Adobe and all year-over-year growth:

Cyber Week, the five days after Thanksgiving, comes in at $47.5 billion, up 7.4%, or 17.3% of the season. Cyber Monday on Nov. 30 is the biggest single day at $15.1 billion, up 6.2%. Black Friday is $12.9 billion, up 9.2%, and Thanksgiving Day is $6.9 billion, up 8.5%.

October matters this year too. Adobe forecasts $95.8 billion in pre-season spending, up 8%, and $9.9 billion for the Oct. 6 and 7 Prime event, up 9.2%. Per Retail Dive, Adobe said the October event “has changed the shape of the holiday season, pushing U.S. retailers to manage promotions and inventory effectively to capture an additional pre-season spike in shopping interest.”

By category, Adobe forecasts electronics at $63.3 billion (up 5.9%), apparel at $51.3 billion (up 4.7%), furniture at $33.4 billion (up 7.3%), grocery at $26.1 billion (up 10.3%), toys at $9.6 billion (up 9.6%) and cosmetics at $9.2 billion (up 9.5%).

Financing and devices moved too. Buy now, pay later is forecast at $21.3 billion for November and December, up 6.6%, with $1.09 billion on Cyber Monday and $807 million on Black Friday. Adobe says 82% of BNPL transactions happen on mobile. Mobile is forecast at 57.4% of full-season spend, up from 56.4% in 2025.

AI-driven traffic to retail sites is forecast to rise 130% year over year, with Thanksgiving up 159%, Black Friday up 95% and Cyber Monday up 88%. In Adobe’s survey, 77% of respondents who used AI for online shopping said they felt more confident in a purchase, and 69% said they were less likely to return the item.

Discounts stay deep but flat. Adobe forecasts up to 30% off during Cyber Week, up to 14% off in early November, up to 21% off before Thanksgiving and 10% to 15% off in December. Electronics land at 30%, against 30.1% in 2025. TVs land at 23%, against 24.2%. I did not find a furniture discount forecast in the release.

Deloitte Sees 7.5% to 8.4% Online Growth; eMarketer Sees Strain

Adobe is not the only forecaster, and the others do not line up neatly. Deloitte published its holiday forecast on Sept. 10, 2026. It projects total retail sales of $1.70 trillion to $1.71 trillion, up 4.0% to 4.8%, and e-commerce of $316.1 billion to $318.9 billion, up 7.5% to 8.4%. Its window runs November 2026 through January 2027, so it is not the same yardstick as Adobe’s two months.

Per Deloitte’s release, Akrur Barua, an economist at Deloitte Insights, said disposable personal income “remains an important input,” with income growth projected at 4.5% to 5.2% for the season. Natalie Martini, vice chair and U.S. retail leader at Deloitte, said shoppers keep pursuing value by “switching among brands and retailers and using promotions to manage spending.”

The cautious view comes from eMarketer and Salesforce. According to Talk Business & Politics, published Sept. 17, they predict total holiday retail sales growth of 4.1%, up from 2.7% in 2025 but below the annual average for the second year in a row. The same report says online sales should top $300 billion for the first time.

Talk Business also reports that consumer pessimism rose 16% year over year, that 90% of survey respondents expect higher prices to change their behavior, and that the bottom 80% of households remain cautious. It notes those sales figures are not adjusted for inflation, which stood at 3.4% as of July 2026.

That caution shows up in Adobe’s own data. Retail Dive reports that shoppers are stocking up on essentials with holiday discounts, not only buying gifts. Adobe’s forecast has personal hygiene products up 150%, clothing basics up 210% and baby products up 113% during Cyber Week, measured against September averages.

The forecasters agree on direction and disagree on size. Nobody in this group is calling for a down year online. No source I read gives a furniture-specific counterforecast, so the furniture number rests on Adobe alone.

The AI angle has a history on this site. Shopify turned on agent checkout for eligible merchants, which I covered in Shopify Lets AI Agents Submit Orders on Your Store. The risks of that shift are in my write-up of the Shop Pay AI checkout security hole.

What a 7.3% Furniture Forecast Means for High-Ticket Stores

My read is that furniture growth is good news you should not bank. Adobe’s $33.4 billion is about 12.1% of its $275.1 billion total by my math, and 7.3% growth implies roughly $31.1 billion last year. That is a healthy pace against 6.7% overall and 5.9% for electronics.

But every forecast here is in dollars, and the cautious sources talk about pessimism, higher prices and households trading down. I could not confirm from the release whether Adobe’s growth is adjusted for inflation, and Talk Business says the eMarketer and Salesforce figures are not. If price is doing part of the lifting, your unit growth will be lower than 7.3%.

Here is hypothetical math to make it concrete. Say your store did $200,000 in November and December 2025 at a $3,000 average order, which is about 67 orders. Growing at Adobe’s furniture pace gives you about $214,600, or roughly 72 orders. Growing at eMarketer’s 4.1% gives you about $208,200, or roughly 69 orders. The gap between the two forecasts is three orders, and one lost chargeback on a $3,000 order at a 20% gross margin wipes out the profit from five. Those figures are invented for illustration, not reported.

That is why I would spend more time on the checkout and the dispute process than on chasing the forecast. My guide to stopping chargebacks on high-ticket stores covers the evidence you need before peak season. A fraud screening service like ClearSale is worth pricing against your dispute rate.

Financing is the second lever. BNPL at $21.3 billion means shoppers are used to splitting large purchases, and 82% of it is on phones. If 15% of your 72 hypothetical orders used installments, that is about 11 orders and roughly $32,000 that a store without financing might lose or discount to win. I would not offer it blindly, since a payment stack with one provider is fragile, as I laid out in why your payment processor is a single point of failure.

Third is the AI traffic number. A 130% jump in AI-driven visits, with Thanksgiving up 159%, tells me agents are becoming a front door to your product pages. They read structured product data, so titles, specs, dimensions, delivery windows and return terms need to be complete. My breakdown of turning Google Shopping clicks into high-ticket sales lines up with this, because the same feed data serves both.

Fourth is discounting. Adobe’s 30% Cyber Week figure is an electronics number, and I found no furniture equivalent. Most high-ticket dropshippers sell under supplier pricing rules, so check your MAP policy before you plan a Cyber Week promotion. I would rather hold price and add value with a free delivery window or an installment offer than start a race you cannot win.

Fifth is shipping. Peak season lands on top of carrier surcharges, which I covered when FedEx fuel surcharges jumped to 32% before peak. For bulky goods, choosing the right fulfillment partner matters more than usual, and my 3PL selection framework is a good place to check your setup.

Delivery updates matter as much as delivery itself on a $3,000 order, so tracking pages from a tool like AfterShip cut the “where is my order” tickets that pile up in December. Pair that with pre-built email flows in Klaviyo for abandoned carts and post-purchase updates, and your holiday support load drops.

The niche question sits under all of this. A strong overall forecast does not rescue a weak category, so revisit my high ticket niches list if your best sellers are soft.

If this list looks like a lot to build before October, it is. A store with tested checkout, clean feeds, supplier terms and a dispute process does not appear in a week. That is the work my team does in the turnkey done-for-you service, and it is why I would rather have a store ready before the season than scramble in the middle of it.

Want to pressure-test your Q4 plan against this forecast with other store owners and me? Join the Skool community →

Five Holiday Moves for High-Ticket Stores Before October 6

Here are five things I would do this week, in order.

Confirm stock, lead times and MAP dates with every supplier by Oct. 5. Ask for written holiday cut-off dates, then feed them into your site, and use Inventory Source if you need automated stock and price feeds from your suppliers.
Test financing at checkout on your phone, start to finish. In Shopify admin, confirm an installment option is enabled and displays on product pages, then place a test order on mobile.
Build a cash plan for October through January. Pull your business credit profile, review your ad and inventory float, and read my cash-flow-first card system before you draw on any card. See my walkthrough on setting up Nav for business credit if you have not checked your file.
Audit the product data AI agents and Google Shopping read. Check titles, dimensions, delivery windows and return terms on your top 20 products, and use Semrush to see which search terms are rising in your category.
Set your support and ad guardrails now. Write macros for delivery, financing and returns questions in Gorgias. Then set a daily spend ceiling for each campaign using my guide to ad platforms for high-ticket stores.

Map the rest of the season on my high-ticket holiday calendar. If you want a second set of eyes on your Q4 plan, book a discovery call this week.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much will Americans spend online this holiday season?
Adobe forecasts $275.1 billion from Nov. 1 through Dec. 31, up 6.7% from about $257.8 billion in 2025 per Chain Store Age. Deloitte’s e-commerce range of $316.1 billion to $318.9 billion covers November through January.

Is furniture forecast to grow faster than the rest of ecommerce?
Per Adobe, yes against the total. Furniture is forecast at $33.4 billion, up 7.3%, against 6.7% overall, though grocery, toys and cosmetics are forecast to grow faster.

Should I offer buy now, pay later on high-ticket orders?
Adobe expects $21.3 billion in BNPL spend, and most of it happens on mobile. I would test it on a few products first and watch disputes, and my holiday promo playbook shows how I would structure the offer.

Do I need to discount 30% on Cyber Monday?
No. Adobe’s 30% figure is for electronics, and I found no furniture discount forecast. Check your supplier’s MAP policy first.

How do I prepare for AI shopping traffic?
Complete your product data, since agents read titles, specs and policies. I broke down one example in how Meta’s Muse can check out with Shop Pay.

What if my niche is soft this season?
A strong forecast will not fix a weak category. Grab my free niches list at ecommerceparadise.com/niches and compare it with your sales.

How do I keep cash steady through Q4?
Growing sales can still drain cash, as I explained in why growing ecommerce businesses run short of cash. A bookkeeping tool like Finaloop gives you a live view of margin, and I am not a financial advisor, so check the specifics with your accountant.

Want my team to build and run your high-ticket store before the next peak season? See the turnkey done-for-you service →

Forecasts move, so I will keep watching this one as the season gets closer. Subscribe to the YouTube channel for daily breakdowns. More breaking news coming through the day.

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Trevor Fenner

Trevor Fenner is an ecommerce entrepreneur and the founder of Ecommerce Paradise, a platform focused on helping entrepreneurs build and scale profitable high-ticket ecommerce and dropshipping businesses. With over a decade of hands-on experience, Trevor specializes in high-ticket dropshipping strategy, niche and product selection, supplier recruiting and onboarding, Google & Bing Shopping ads, ecommerce SEO, and systems-driven automation and scaling. Through Ecommerce Paradise, he provides free education via in-depth guides like How to Start High-Ticket Dropshipping, advanced training through the High-Ticket Dropshipping Masterclass, and fully done-for-you turnkey ecommerce services for entrepreneurs who want a faster, more hands-off path to growth. Trevor is known for emphasizing sustainable, real-world ecommerce models over hype-driven tactics, helping store owners build scalable, sellable, and location-independent brands.