Prepare for Black Friday by treating it as one point in a holiday campaign: plan offers around stock and margin, test the entire mobile checkout, make delivery and return terms explicit, and monitor orders and fulfillment while promotions run. Adobe’s September 28, 2026 forecast projects $275.1 billion in U.S. online holiday sales from November 1 through December 31, but that is an industry forecast—not a target or guarantee for an individual store.
What to plan for in the 2026 holiday season
Adobe projects U.S. online sales of $275.1 billion for November 1–December 31, 2026, up 6.7% year over year. Its forecast puts Cyber Week at $47.5 billion, Black Friday at $12.9 billion, and Cyber Monday at $15.1 billion. Adobe also expects Cyber Week to account for 17.3% of full-season spend. These figures are forecasts and may differ from actual results; store-level performance will depend on category, audience, margin, inventory, and execution. Adobe’s 2026 holiday forecast
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For context, Adobe reported $11.8 billion in U.S. online Black Friday sales in 2025, up 9.1% year over year. NRF counted 202.9 million consumers shopping across channels over the 2025 Thanksgiving-to-Cyber-Monday weekend; Black Friday was the top shopping day both online and in stores. Those figures use different measures and methods, so they should not be combined as if they came from one dataset. NRF’s 2025 weekend results
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Mobile deserves particular attention: Adobe says mobile represented 56.4% of U.S. online holiday transactions in 2025 and forecasts that mobile will account for 57.4% of full-season online spend in 2026. These are reported results and a forecast, respectively; they make a strong case for testing the phone shopping journey rather than assuming the desktop experience is enough.
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15 practical tips for preparing your store
1. Plan for the whole season, not just Friday
Build a calendar for early offers, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and post-event follow-through. Adobe expects shopping activity across October, November, and December, with Cyber Week forecast to contribute 17.3% of full-season spend. Use the calendar to coordinate campaign dates, inventory readiness, customer-support coverage, and fulfillment capacity—not just ad launches. Adobe’s seasonal forecast
2. Set promotions against margin and inventory
Before announcing an offer, decide which products can support it. Calculate the margin impact for each discount, account for promotion rules and fulfillment costs, and set quantities based on available stock and supplier replenishment. Adobe expects deal activity from early November through December and category discount peaks on different days; that is a market forecast, not a reason for every store to discount the same products or on the same dates. Adobe’s forecast
3. Make mobile a first-class shopping path
Test the journey on common phone sizes, from landing page to order confirmation. Check navigation, product images and details, add-to-cart behavior, promo-code entry, payment, and error handling. Adobe’s 2025 result and 2026 forecast show why mobile merits dedicated QA, but they do not predict the share for any particular store. Adobe’s mobile figures
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4. Test checkout end to end
Place test orders using the payment methods and delivery options customers will see. Verify the final total, shipping charges, discount-stacking rules, tax calculation, error messages, and order emails. Confirm that the customer-facing offer matches what checkout actually applies.
5. Explain each deal before checkout
State the offer, eligible products, start and end times, exclusions, stock limits, and whether it can be combined with other promotions. Show the price customers should expect to pay and make any conditions easy to find; ambiguity at the product page or cart can create avoidable support questions.
6. Keep product pages accurate
Refresh descriptions, images, size or compatibility details, availability, and delivery estimates before sending campaign traffic to a page. Adobe forecasts a 130% year-over-year increase in holiday referrals to U.S. retail sites from AI tools, but that projection does not establish a guaranteed discovery ranking or referral lift from any particular page change. Clear product information helps people evaluate what they are being sent to buy. Adobe’s forecast
7. Match advertised quantities to stock
Coordinate promotional quantities with inventory on hand and expected replenishment. Decide in advance who will pause ads, change a product page, or remove an offer when stock becomes constrained. Use your own sales and inventory data to set those thresholds; an industry forecast cannot tell you how much of a specific item to hold.
8. Make shipping promises specific and achievable
Display order cutoffs, expected dispatch and delivery windows, shipping costs, and geographic restrictions. Check that the promise shown on the site matches actual warehouse or fulfillment capacity, including during peak periods. If delivery dates vary by location or service level, explain that before payment.
9. Make returns and support easy to find
Put return eligibility, any holiday extension you offer, contact routes, and self-service order tracking where customers can find them. Keep policy wording consistent across product pages, checkout, and post-purchase messages so buyers are not left to reconcile different terms.
10. Evaluate payment flexibility carefully
Adobe forecasts $21.3 billion in U.S. online buy now, pay later spending for November and December 2026, including $807 million on Black Friday. That is a forecast of market use, not a recommendation that every store offer the option. Before adding or promoting a payment method, assess customer demand, provider terms and fees, eligibility, implementation time, reporting, and the support work it may create. Adobe’s BNPL forecast
11. Prepare support for predictable questions
Draft accurate answers about sale terms, stock, delivery, returns, and order status. Set escalation coverage for the hours campaigns are active, and make sure agents can see the relevant order and promotion details. Update the answers if inventory or delivery estimates change.
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Adobe forecasts that affiliate and partner as well as social channels will gain share of revenue; within its affiliate-channel estimates, cashback and rewards and creators are important. These are channel forecasts, not guaranteed outcomes for a merchant. Choose partners based on audience fit, total cost, margin impact, implementation time, reporting, and your ability to assess incrementality. Use appropriate disclosures and review results against your own economics. Adobe’s channel forecast
13. Make external referrals land on the right information
For visitors arriving from social, affiliate, search, or AI-assisted discovery, confirm that the destination resolves to the intended product and shows current price, stock, shipping, and offer terms. Adobe’s AI referral projection describes expected traffic at the market level; it does not prove that a particular optimization will increase referrals to your store. Adobe’s forecast
14. Verify analytics, alerts, and decision ownership
Before traffic peaks, check campaign tags, order and revenue reporting, discount attribution, inventory alerts, and site-availability monitoring. Name the people authorized to pause campaigns or fix a broken offer, and make sure they know how to reach one another during active promotions.
15. Review results before repeating the playbook
After the event, compare performance by product, offer, device, channel, and fulfillment outcome against your store’s own baseline. Note where stock ran short, delivery promises slipped, checkout failed, or support demand increased. Use those observations to shape the next seasonal campaign rather than treating an industrywide forecast as a target every store should hit.
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How to compare choices before committing
Whether you are evaluating a discount, payment option, marketing partner, or fulfillment provider, compare the factors that affect both customer experience and operating economics. No universal discount level or vendor is established by the cited forecasts.
Quick Recap
- Total cost and margin impact: Include discounts, fees, and fulfillment costs.
- Fit: Check whether the option suits your customers and products.
- Time and eligibility: Account for implementation time, geography, and customer eligibility.
- Operational capacity: Confirm inventory, support, and fulfillment can handle the offer.
- Measurement: Determine what reporting and attribution are available and how you will judge incrementality.
- Customer clarity: Make terms, fees, delivery, and restrictions understandable before purchase.
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
