Social media ads, generative AI and Prime Day boost online October sales. Holiday sales growth is expected to slow, as consumers pull forward their holiday shopping.
U.S. online sales increased 8.8% year over year in October to reach $88.7 billion, according to Adobe Analytics.
This growth is in-line with Adobe’s expectations, and affirms Adobe’s holiday season forecast, which is a 5.3% year-over-year increase for U.S. online sales in November and December. Adobe’s estimates are based on analysis of 1 trillion web visits to U.S. retailers and 100 million SKUs.
The October online sales growth also indicates that shoppers are spreading out their holiday season shopping and pulling it forward, said Vivek Pandya, Director at Adobe Digital Insights, in an emailed statement.
“The October growth is indicative of stable online retail demand for goods, and representative of consumers spreading their holiday spending further and earlier to mange broader costs,” Pandya said.
Further indication that the holiday season was on consumers’ minds is the fact that holiday decor sales increased 130% compared to September. Other categories with large increases in online sales compared with September include:
- Hand tools sales increased 83% month over month
- E-reader sales increased 81%
- Power tools increased 62%
- Refrigerators & freezers increased 55%
- Headphones & speakers increased 52%
- Phone accessories increased 51%
Social Media Ads, Generative AI and Prime Day Boost October Sales
Amazon’s Prime Day bolstered October sales, as shoppers spent $9.1 billion online across all retailers (a 7.3% year-over-year increase) on Oct. 7-8, according to Adobe. Discounts were on average 18% off listed price.
Based on October’s data, Adobe projects social media advertising will be a significant growth driver of holiday season sales. In October, purchases attributed to web traffic from social media increased 28% year over year. This is a sharp rise before the holiday season. Comparatively, in October 2024, social media-attributed purchases grew 5.6% year over year.
For affiliates, which includes social media influencers, sales attributed to this channel increased 15% year over year in October 2025. This data all points to consumers turning to channels beyond search and email to discover products, according to Adobe.
Adobe also finds that traffic to retail websites from generative AI platforms, such as ChatGPT, increased 1,200% year over year. What’s more, once these shoppes were on the retail site, they were 16% more likely to convert compared with non-AI traffic sources, such as social media, email and paid search.
Holiday sales will grow slower than last year
Despite signs of consumer resiliency in uncertain economic times, both Adobe and NRF estimate sales growth will slow for the 2025 holiday season:
- Adobe’s projected 5.3% online holiday season sales growth is a slowdown from 2024, when Adobe estimated online sales increased 8.4% year over year.
- For total holiday season sales in stores and online, the National Retail Federation projects sales will grow 3.7%-4.2% year over year, reaching $1.01 trillion. This would be a slow down in sales growth from the 2024 holiday season, when the NRF estimates total sales increased 4.3% year over year.
