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Prepare for Black Friday by planning the full holiday promotion calendar, checking inventory and margins, and testing the customer journey from a phone through checkout and delivery. For U.S. retailers, Adobe’s September 28, 2026 forecast projects $275.1 billion in online sales from November 1 through December 31, including $12.9 billion on Black Friday and $15.1 billion on Cyber Monday. Those are projections, not results, and your store’s outcomes will depend on its products, audience, stock, margins, and execution.
What the 2026 holiday forecast means for your store
Adobe’s U.S. forecast projects $47.5 billion in online sales during Cyber Week, or 17.3% of the full-season total. It also expects significant shopping activity across November and December, rather than on Black Friday alone. Use those figures to plan coverage across the season, not as a sales target your store should expect to reach. Adobe’s 2026 holiday forecast is for November 1 through December 31 and may differ from eventual results.
Mobile deserves particular attention: it accounted for 56.4% of U.S. online holiday transactions in 2025, and Adobe forecasts that it will account for 57.4% of full-season online spend in 2026. Separately, NRF reported that 202.9 million consumers shopped across channels during the 2025 Thanksgiving-to-Cyber-Monday weekend, with Black Friday the top shopping day both in store and online. These figures use different measures and methods, so they should not be combined as if they describe the same dataset.
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15 Black Friday ecommerce tips
1. Plan for the whole holiday season
Set a schedule for early offers, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the period after those events. Assign owners and deadlines for campaign setup, inventory checks, customer support, and fulfillment. A season-long calendar helps your team avoid treating Friday as the only moment that matters.
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2. Set promotions around margin and stock
Decide which products can support a discount before you advertise one. Calculate the effect of each offer on margin, including any associated costs, and set limits that reflect available stock and replenishment plans. Adobe expects deal activity to span early November through December, with discount peaks varying by category; that forecast is not a reason to discount every product.
3. Test the mobile shopping journey
Check the store on common phone screen sizes, from product discovery to order confirmation. Test navigation, product images and details, cart controls, promo-code entry, payment, and the confirmation page. A page that works on desktop can still have obstructed buttons, unreadable terms, or awkward forms on a phone.
4. Place test orders from start to finish
Use the payment methods and delivery options customers will see. Confirm that totals, shipping charges, tax, discount rules, error messages, and order emails behave as intended. Include a test with a rejected or invalid code and verify that customers receive a clear explanation rather than an unexplained failure.
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State the offer, eligible products, start and end times, exclusions, stock limits, and whether the promotion can be combined with another discount. Make the customer’s actual price understandable on the product page or in the cart, not only in a campaign message.
6. Update product pages
Before directing campaign traffic to a product, check that its description, images, size or compatibility details, availability, and delivery estimates are current. Adobe forecasts a 130% year-over-year rise in U.S. retail-site referrals from AI tools during the 2026 holiday season. That is a traffic forecast; it does not establish that a particular page change will improve discovery or ranking.
7. Match advertising to inventory
Set promotion quantities against stock on hand and realistic supplier replenishment. Decide who will update product pages or pause campaigns if an item becomes scarce or unavailable. Use your own sales and inventory data for those decisions; an industry forecast cannot tell you how much stock a specific store needs.
8. Make shipping promises specific and achievable
Show shipping costs, order cutoffs, expected dispatch and delivery windows, and geographic restrictions. Check those promises against the capacity of your warehouse or fulfillment provider, including busy-day processing limits. Do not leave a delivery estimate online if operations can no longer meet it.
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Make return eligibility, any holiday extension, contact options, and self-service order tracking easy to find. Keep policy wording consistent on product pages, at checkout, and in post-purchase messages so customers are not given conflicting terms.
10. Weigh payment flexibility against its costs
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. Those figures describe projected market use, not a recommendation for every retailer. Before adding or promoting a payment option, assess customer demand, provider terms and fees, eligibility, and the support work it may create.
11. Prepare support for predictable questions
Draft accurate answers about promotions, availability, delivery, returns, and order status. Set escalation coverage for the hours when campaigns are active, and give support staff a reliable way to check current inventory and order details.
12. Choose marketing partners selectively
Adobe forecasts that affiliate and partner and social channels will gain share of holiday revenue; its affiliate estimates include cashback, rewards, and creators. These are market forecasts, not guaranteed results for an individual store. Choose partners based on audience fit and economics, use appropriate disclosures, and evaluate performance against your own margin and incrementality analysis.
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13. Make referral landing pages useful
For visitors arriving from social media, affiliates, search, or AI-assisted discovery, make sure the link resolves to the intended product. Show its current price, stock status, shipping information, and relevant terms clearly. Adobe’s forecast for AI referrals does not prove that any specific optimization will increase referrals.
14. Verify analytics and alerts before traffic rises
Check campaign tags, order and revenue reporting, discount attribution, inventory alerts, and site availability monitoring before launch. Agree in advance on who can pause an offer or campaign and who can correct a broken page or checkout flow.
15. Review results before repeating the plan
After the event, compare performance by product, offer, device, channel, and fulfillment outcome against your store’s own baseline. Record what worked operationally as well as commercially, then use those findings to shape the next seasonal campaign rather than treating industry forecasts as a target.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to evaluate a promotion, payment option, or partner
There is no universal best discount, payment method, marketing partner, or fulfillment provider for every store. Compare options using criteria that reflect both customer fit and your ability to deliver:
Quick Recap
- Total cost and margin impact: Include discounts, fees, and operational costs in the calculation.
- Customer and product fit: Consider whether the option suits your audience and the products being promoted.
- Implementation time: Confirm your team can configure and test it before the campaign begins.
- Eligibility and geography: Check which customers and locations can use it.
- Stock and operational capacity: Make sure demand can be supported by inventory, fulfillment, and customer service.
- Reporting and attribution: Establish how you will assess outcomes and compare them with your own baseline.
- Support and terms: Know who handles customer questions and make the conditions clear to shoppers.
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.
