With Black Friday two weeks away, retail forecasters are converging on a similar story for the 2026 holiday season: spending growth will slow from last year's pace, but total sales will cross $1 trillion for the first time, as a cautious consumer keeps shopping even while watching every dollar.
The National Retail Federation projects November-December sales of $1.013 trillion, up 4.2 percent from last year, while consulting firm Bain & Company forecasts 4.5 percent growth, enough to push the season past the trillion-dollar mark for the first time in its own model. Both figures exclude spending at car dealers, gas stations and restaurants. Forecasting firm eMarketer and Salesforce are more cautious, projecting 4.1 percent growth and pointing to higher gas prices, persistent inflation and tariffs as reasons shoppers may pull back.
Online spending is expected to grow faster than the season overall. Adobe's holiday shopping forecast projects a record $275.1 billion in US online holiday sales, up 6.7 percent from last year, with Black Friday alone expected to generate $12.9 billion in online sales — a 9.2 percent increase driven largely by steep discounts on televisions, apparel and appliances. eMarketer's Black Friday online estimate is slightly higher, at $13.4 billion. Cyber Monday, which falls on Nov. 30 this year, is projected to remain the season's single biggest online shopping day, at roughly $15.1 billion.
A more price-conscious shopper
The growth forecasts mask a more hesitant consumer underneath. Bain's own research finds that more than 90 percent of US shoppers plan to participate in Black Friday, Cyber Monday or another major sales event this year — a sign that discount-driven shopping, rather than full-price buying, is expected to carry much of the season. Separately, PwC's holiday outlook survey expects average per-person gift spending to dip about 2 percent to $708, even as overall dollar volume rises, implying retailers will need either more shoppers or more items per basket to hit the higher totals.
That tension between rising aggregate sales and softer per-person spending has shown up all year in retailers' own commentary, with several large chains describing a customer who is trading down to private-label goods, waiting for promotional windows, and consolidating trips rather than browsing. Retailers have responded by moving major discount events earlier in November rather than concentrating markdowns solely around Thanksgiving weekend, spreading out both demand on their logistics networks and the psychological pressure on shoppers to buy immediately.
What retailers are watching
The next real test of these forecasts arrives with Black Friday itself and the government's November jobs and retail-sales reports due in December, which will show whether the labor market cooling that has worried economists this fall is translating into weaker consumer spending. For now, forecasters across NRF, Bain, Adobe and eMarketer are aligned on the broad shape of the season even as they differ on specifics — modest but positive growth, an outsized share moving online, and a shopper who needs a deal to be persuaded to spend.
