Salesforce has revealed its findings on holiday shopping for 2025 (November 1st to December 31st), reporting record online sales of $1.29 trillion globally and $294 billion in the United States, heavily influenced by AI and agents. Even with an increase in the average selling price, year-over-year sales growth reached 7% globally and 4% in the US, proving that consumer purchasing decisions remained strong from the beginning of the period.
Consumers demonstrated remarkable resilience throughout the holiday season, driving a 12% year-over-year global increase in sales (9% in the US) in the last two weeks of December, surpassing growth in the first half of the season. Meanwhile, AI and agents underpinned a large part of the holidays, accounting for 20% of all retail sales and generating $262 billion in revenue through personalized recommendations and enhanced customer engagement.
Holiday shoppers in 2025 embrace AI and agents
This year marked a turning point for the next wave of AI-driven searches, as the share of global and US traffic coming from third-party AI search channels like ChatGPT and Perplexity doubled compared to last year. While these channels are still growing, they deliver an extremely motivated customer. In fact, shoppers referred to retailer websites by AI-based search channels converted nine times more often than those who came via social media referrals.
Retailers' own-brand agents also contributed to sales growth – while simultaneously increasing the efficiency of their teams. Companies that deployed their own AI agents, such as Salesforce customers Pandora, SharkNinja , and Funko, saw a 59% higher growth rate — with an average increase of 6.2% in sales compared to 3.9%. Consumers embraced this technology more than ever before, using AI and retailers' agents for customer service 126% more often during the holiday rush than in the previous two months.
With the peak of the season, AI agents became fundamental to providing 24/7 customer service. December saw a 66% increase in the number of service conversations handled by AI agents compared to November. In addition to answering questions, these agents also acted directly on behalf of customers, handling 142% more tasks than in the previous two months.
Insights on holiday shopping 2025
- Physical stores continue to have a constant presence: Almost one in five orders this season was placed via BOPIS (BBuy Online, Pick Up In Store, (or buy online and pick up in store). However, as shoppers rushed to finish off last-minute gifts, that rate rose to one in three in the last five days before Christmas.
- The use of BOPIS peaked on Monday, December 22nd, when 35% of all online orders were for in-store pickup.
- The return rate increases: More than $181 billion in global online purchases made between November 1st and December 31st have already been returned. This represents 14% of all purchases and a 10% increase in returns compared to last year.
- Items purchased in-store during the last four days before Christmas are more likely to be returned in January.
- Purchasing power trends: During the holiday season, the average selling price (ASP) increased 7% year-over-year both globally and in the U.S. However, consumers were not deterred by higher prices—order volumes this season increased moderately by 3% globally and 1% in the U.S. compared to last year.
- Consumers research extensively before buying: Although this holiday season was marked by a resilient consumer, there was more research before conversion. Online traffic grew 13% globally and 12% in the US compared to last year's volumes, significantly exceeding last year's growth rates of 1% and 2%, respectively.
“The 2025 holiday season marked a definitive shift to a new era of ‘agent’ shopping. While consumers remained resilient in the face of higher prices, the real story was how retailers leaned on AI and agents to navigate the holiday rush. Agents not only generated $262 billion in sales through high-intent discovery; they became the operational heroes of the season—handling a 142% increase in tasks like returns and shipping updates. It wasn’t just a bigger holiday season than last year; it was a more efficient and smarter one.” — Caila Schwartz, Director of Consumer Insights at Salesforce.
Salesforce 2025 Holiday Insights and Forecasting Methodology
Powered by Agentforce 360, Agentforce Commerce, Agentforce Marketing, and Agentforce Service, Salesforce analyzed aggregated data to generate holiday insights from the activity of more than 1.5 billion global shoppers in over 89 countries, focusing on 18 key markets: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, Asia Pacific (excluding Japan, Australia, and New Zealand), Switzerland, Latin America (LAM), the Middle East and Africa (MEA), Eastern Europe, Belgium, and the Nordic countries. This set of benchmarks provides an in-depth analysis of the last nine quarters and the current state of digital commerce. Several factors are applied to extrapolate macroeconomic figures to the retail sector as a whole. These and other results do not indicate Salesforce's performance.
The forecast data we present comes from Salesforce's proprietary research. The calculations we use combine first-party and third-party data, as well as various market assumptions.
