The holiday shopping season is set to kick off in November, with U.S. online sales projected to surpass $253.4 billion, according to data from Adobe Analytics. Early deals are already rolling out as retailers prepare for one of the busiest — and most competitive — shopping seasons in years.

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U.S. online holiday sales are forecast to exceed $253 billion, marking a 5.3% increase from the previous year, according to Adobe Analytics. Early shopping is anticipated, with significant discounts available in October, including during Amazon's Prime Day event, which alone is expected to generate $9 billion in sales.

Major retailers such as Amazon, Walmart, and Target are offering special deals throughout October. Consumers are advised to plan purchases and verify discounts, as price fluctuations are generally modest across the season. Tariffs are impacting some product categories, with notable price increases for video game accessories and changes in packaging for toys.

U.S. holiday shoppers expected to spend over $253 billion online

We are less than a month away now from the start of the holiday shopping season, and consumers are expected to spend big online. According to data from Adobe Analytics, U.S. online sales are projected to hit more than $253 billion between November 1st and December 31st. That is a 5.3% increase from that same time period in 2024. Now, despite it not officially being the holiday shopping season, Adobe does expect some people to start early and to take advantage of some big October discounts. That includes during Amazon's Prime Day event, which runs October 7th and 8th, so tomorrow and Wednesday. Adobe forecasts $9 billion will be spent those days alone, up more than 6% from last year. And for a breakdown of some of the best deals out there, CNET's Director of Commerce Content, Russell Hawley, joins us now. Russell, thanks for being with us here to talk about shopping, always one of my favorite topics. Amazon, though, it is not the only company with deals this week. Walmart also has specials from today through October 12th. Target has specials all week long. So as a consumer, what is the best way for us to take advantage of these deals? I think the best thing to start with is to kind of know ahead of time what it is that you're looking for. It's really difficult to browse a lot of these things now because there are just so many different things to choose from. And, you know, kind of the old adage about companies raising prices so that they can lower them during sales is just as true now as it was, you know, 20 years ago. So knowing what you're looking for ahead of time and being able to kind of verify that what you're getting is actually on sale is a really significant place to start. I know. It's always like you want to strategize to do this well, especially laptops, smartphones, televisions. Those are always incredibly popular for the holidays. What is your best advice on when to buy those kinds of electronics between now and the new year? I think a really interesting data point that we've tracked over the last couple of years is that prices don't fluctuate as much as you might think between now, you know, this Prime Day event that's coming up and the end of the year. A lot of people think that Black Friday is kind of the only time of year that you can buy a lot of these things. And that's just not the case anymore. There's just a lot of these things that will be on sale with maybe a five or ten dollar difference, you know, between now and the end of the year with with a couple of very unique exceptions that would be available, you know, either based on a subscription service or, you know, something that's quite limited in access. So, Russell, something is a little different this year. Of course, it is a big T tariffs. How are those going to be impacting shopping habits? There's a couple of different ways that we know that tariffs are going to impact, you know, especially if you're shopping for for younger kids. You know, we know that there are quite a few manufacturers who are opting to not put things like batteries, you know, in toy boxes this year. So make sure that you have batteries on hand so that you're not one of those parents on Christmas Day who, you know, has to run out and look for batteries. The other thing we're seeing is that, you know, video games and especially accessories for video games, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have all increased prices this year, citing tariffs. The only exception to that is the new Nintendo Switch 2, which for the moment is at its regular price. But Nintendo has not rolled out a price hike for that before the end of the year. All right. Russell Holly, thank you very much. We appreciate your time here. Thanks for having me.

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