In July, we conducted our second annual Black Friday Cyber Monday Trends Survey to understand what strategies and tactics businesses are prioritizing ahead of this year’s peak season.
You can see a full overview of the results here, but in this post, we’ll get into the finer details of strategies, tools, and best practices to help your business rise to the top this holiday season.
The holiday season represents a major bump in many merchants’ revenue schedules, with 73% of merchants reporting that this period accounts for over 20% of their annual revenue.
In 2024, Black Friday alone generated $10.8B in revenue, up from $9.8B in 2023. Cyber Monday saw a similar increase as consumers spent $13.3B in ‘24 — up from $12.4B in ‘23. Overall, the holiday season (from November first to December 31st) generated $241.4B in 2024, nearly $20B more than in 2023.
And despite economic uncertainty caused by US tariff changes, Salsify found that 53% of consumers plan on spending the same amount as last year, and 22% plan to spend more.
The TL;DR? Don’t hold back during this peak shopping season. The holiday pie continues to expand, and we’ll do our best to help you take a bigger piece of it.
Important consumer behavior insights from 2024
To set the scene, here are a few stats to keep in mind as you prepare your store:
44% of consumers will start their holiday shopping before November in 2025.
61% of consumers prefer buying from brands that align with their personal values.
Mobile device spending accounted for 54.5% of holiday revenue, but desktop conversion rates were higher throughout the season.
Buy now, pay later (BNPL) spend increased from $16.6B in 2023 to $18.2B in 2024, and 79% of last year’s BNPL purchases were made on mobile devices.
Holiday shopping has already started
As we said last year, the time is now — especially because consumers want to spread out their holiday spending in 2025. BazaarVoice’s consumer shopping report found that more shoppers will begin their gift search in September and October, evening out the spread between early shoppers and those who begin shopping in November.
Personalized marketing helps you stand out from the crowd
That said, even if your holiday deals don’t start soon, you should be preparing with data analysis and customer segmentation: 57% of shoppers would find alerts about deals on products they’ve shown interest in to be “extremely helpful”.
Personalized deals and product recommendations can set your brand apart — but only if you have the systems in place to automate and execute on those tactics.
Optimize your website for the best possible experience
Mobile devices accounted for 54.5% of holiday spending, but desktop shopping saw higher conversion rates. This means that both versions of your website must be speedy, sleek, and easy to use: don’t give consumers a reason to leave before they even look at your products.
This also applies to your checkout process: make sure you have a variety of payment options available — including BNPL — and make sure all of them are easy for customers to complete on mobile devices.
Tips from our expert ecommerce agencies
In addition to the trends report, we also surveyed 12 certified WooCommerce agencies, asking about preparation timelines and best practices for the holiday shopping season.
They recommend getting started if you haven’t already: 41.7% start preparing clients’ stores three to six months in advance, with larger agencies (and merchants) planning even further ahead.
Ten out of the twelve agencies agreed that the top three priorities for holiday preparations are:
Conversion rate optimization,
Marketing and promotion setup,
and site speed and performance.
These responses were consistent with the findings of our merchant trends report. Find out how your peers are preparing — all the details are in the sections below.
Website performance optimization (and upgraded hosting)
We noted in the results overview that site performance and hosting were the top upgrades planned for 2025. But, this isn’t just about site speed. Ease of navigation and mobile responsiveness will also play a big role in your holiday season success.
As we mentioned above, Adobe found that 2024’s mobile device spend was higher, but desktop saw more conversions. Both devices are important and should receive some attention as the holiday season draws near.
Your preparation task list
Testing: Test site speed, core web vitals, checkout flows, transaction emails, and any other mission-critical functionality. Run changes on a staging site before taking them live. Everything should be fast, simple, and easy to navigate.
Upgrade and migration planning: If you’re thinking of migrating hosts or upgrading your hosting plan before the holiday season, get that underway. Use traffic spikes from previous years (or look at benchmark data for
