Early indicators from the long Black Friday weekend suggest a strong opening chapter to the 2025 holiday shopping season. Retailers saw brisk activity both online and in stores. In a recent Forbes.com article, the tone is optimistic and reports that many analysts believe consumers arrived ready to spend.
This early lift is helping to set the season’s pace and support broader confidence across the retail sector.
The shift in shopping behavior continues to reshape how success is measured. At the beginning of the season, consumers do seem more likely to stay home and shop online instead of lining up outside big box stores. Generative AI shopping assistants are accelerating this trend by helping users compare offers, track price drops, and then time their purchases with more precision. As a result, online channels are becoming more central to how retailers plan holiday promotions.
Even so, stores remain a crucial part of the consumer landscape. The National Retail Federation estimated that approximately 129.5 million people shopped in stores over the weekend. The Mall of America set a record for Black Friday foot traffic, and many mall tenants reported their strongest sales of the year. Placer.ai data showed visit increases across multiple mall formats, reinforcing the continued relevance of physical retail.
The outlook is bright, but as always, the final stretch of the season will test consumer endurance. Retailers note that momentum has to continue to hold, to sustain the early gains. While shoppers are spending, some are also signaling a willingness to take on debt to do it. Buy Now, Pay Later purchases hit new highs on Cyber Monday, and Adobe expects BNPL use to reach $20 billion for the full season. This raises questions about how budgets may tighten after the holidays and what it could mean for early 2026 demand.
For now, the strong start provides retailers with valuable insight into channel performance, promotional timing, and consumer behavior. The next few weeks will reveal whether this pace continues or moderates as financial pressure grows.
