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Every U.S. retailer knows the holiday season is the most important commercial moment of the year. In 2025, the stakes are higher than ever. Much like the relatives who arrive en masse every holiday season, this is when shoppers turn up in person, in numbers too large to ignore. Stores become the centre of gravity again; the place where customer expectations peak, margins stabilise and brand trust is either earned or eroded.
This year’s holiday period is forecast to be the first trillion-dollar U.S. holiday season. The National Retail Federation (NRF) projects retail sales in November and December will grow 3.7% to 4.2% over 2025, translating to roughly US $1.01–1.02 trillion.
That’s a trillion dollars of concentrated, high-intent transactions from shoppers who are making quick decisions, expecting seamless availability and judging retailers at their most vulnerable and visible moment. How well retailers perform in that environment will influence not only Q4 results but the tone, momentum and confidence they carry into 2026.
Despite years of digital acceleration, the in-store holiday story remains remarkably consistent. According to Visa, during 2024 roughly 77% of total payment volume occurred in stores, leaving only 23% online. In-store spending grew about 4.1%, while online grew roughly 7.1%, highlighting that although online is growing faster, in-store still captures the bulk of spend.
On big-ticket shopping days, Black Friday, Super Saturday and the final weekend before Christmas, physical traffic spikes in ways unmatched during the rest of the year. What this means is that when the stakes are highest, shoppers still want immediacy, certainty and the experience of getting everything done in one trip.
According to the 2025 Holiday Retail Survey by Deloitte, 77% of shoppers expect higher prices and 58% view holiday shopping as stressful, which means reliability and convenience rank higher than ever. Customers may forgive stock-outs or slow delivery in April; they rarely forgive them in December. The pressure to deliver accurate availability, timely service and friction-less checkout is at its peak. Get it right, and retailers cement trust, loyalty and return visits that influence shopping patterns well into the new year. Get it wrong, and the damage can last just as long.
In-store performance has become one of retail’s most reliable indicators of underlying health. Holiday trading exposes everything from real inventory accuracy to the strength of service teams, operational resilience, and the true value perception customers hold. Retailers who handle December well tend to handle the following year with more stability and strategic clarity. Their store teams are sharper, their processes are better rehearsed, and their shoppers enter January believing the retailer can deliver.
One of the most important shifts in recent years has been how holiday performance impacts margin planning. Digital sales may grow faster, but they carry higher fulfilment costs, heavier return rates and thinner profit margins. In-store holiday spending, by contrast, continues to deliver stronger economics. The Visa data underlines that in-store remains the majority source of spend, and that mix advantage helps ease the cost pressures across the omnichannel model.
The holiday season has also become the most valuable real-time test environment retailers have. Under peak pressure they can see which merchandising decisions work best, which store layouts drive fastest conversion, how staffing models stand up to surges, and where operational bottlenecks slow them down. In quieter months, such issues might be hidden; in December they’re impossible to ignore. Many leading U.S. retailers now treat the holiday season as a proving ground for the coming year; what holds in December informs the blueprint for Q1 and Q2 strategy.
If there is one area where retailers should focus their attention in 2025, it’s on the fundamentals that shape trust: accurate inventory data, clear communication about availability and fulfilment, fast replenishment, and an effortless in-store experience. These are not new priorities, but their impact is amplified during the holiday season. Small failures become big ones. Small improvements become competitive advantages.
With average intent at $1,007 per consumer this season according to Gallup, retailers who convert that intent into in-store loyalty will be well placed. The season is less about simply capturing seasonal demand and more about shaping the customer relationships, operational discipline and channel economics that define the year ahead. In this context, performance during the holiday season becomes a forward-looking indicator of how prepared a retailer is to manage complexity, how confidently it can protect margin, and how consistently it can deliver on the promises shoppers rely on.
“Happy Holidays” may be a greeting, but for U.S. retailers in 2025 it is also a benchmark. The stores that make the season truly “happy” (effortless, reliable and trustworthy) will be the ones shaping the conversation and the competition well into 2026.
Find out more about TrackMaster
We see first-hand how real-time inventory visibility changes the in-store experience - which is why we built TrackMaster to help retailers know exactly what they have, where it is, and how fast it’s moving.
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