US shoppers spent a record 11.8 billion dollars online on Black Friday, up 9.1% from last year, but this growth isn’t coming from people buying more. With average order value and units per order both down, the increase is being driven almost entirely by higher prices, as economic pressure and tariffs push costs up. Cyber Monday spending was on track for 14.2 billion dollars, another record shaped more by inflation than by volume.
Behind those numbers sits a sharp behavior shift. AI assistants drove traffic and shaped decisions. Shoppers used mobile as the primary device. Promotions stretched across November instead of peaking on one chaotic morning. And the brands that won were not the ones shouting the loudest. They were the ones that treated AI, owned channels, and retention as core infrastructure, not accessories.
Winning the sale is only half the battle, though; the real upside comes from turning BFCM shoppers into long-term customers. For that, we’ve shared a full playbook in our guide to post-BFCM retention strategies that scale.
How Consumers Actually Shopped This BFCM
Demand was up, but shoppers behaved like disciplined operators, not impulse buyers.
Across the five days from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, 202.9 million consumers in the US shopped in store or online, up from 197 million last year, setting a new record. Online shoppers reached 134.9 million, up 9%. In store shoppers reached 129.5 million, up 3%. Average spend over the weekend hit 337.86 dollars, up from 315.56 dollars and the highest level since 2019.
Adobe and Salesforce both highlight a pattern you likely saw in your own dashboards. Average selling prices increased about 7 percent, while order volumes fell around 1 percent and units per transaction dropped about 2 percent. Shoppers spent more per order, bought fewer items, and focused on higher priced products.
Black Friday remained a huge day, but shopping behavior was spread out throughout the weekend. Saturday and Sunday traffic rose sharply, with Sunday in store traffic up 27% year over year. Cyber Monday pulled in 75.9 million online shoppers, up from 64.4 million last year.
Online spend kept climbing. Adobe and Mastercard data shows Black Friday ecommerce sales up about 10 percent, while stores saw only low single digit growth. Revenue rose more than 7 percent even though shoppers bought fewer items, driven by higher prices and a shift toward premium categories.
How AI Assistants Changed the Journey
The biggest structural change this year sat in the search bar. AI did not sit off to the side. AI drove traffic.
Adobe reported an 805 percent surge in AI driven visits to retail sites on Black Friday. Shoppers who arrived after clicking links from AI assistants were 38 percent more likely to buy than visitors from other sources. Shoppers describe the need, an agent does the hunting, and the retailer sees higher conversion and larger baskets from those sessions.
AI did not only matter in aggregate. Usage skewed young. Recent data from Mastercard shows around 61 percent of Gen Z and 57 percent of millennials using AI tools to shop, from gift discovery to price comparison and stock checks, in line with what was observed during BFCM. Those shoppers lean on chat style interfaces and expect product suggestions in plain language, not in filter menus.
Domaine’s own team used ChatGPT as a gift finding tool and liked the guided questions and quick comparisons. Others tried AI shopping but abandoned it fast because listings were inconsistent, prices were missing, or results pointed to obscure retailers. A few used AI only at the end of the journey to compare products already in their carts. Several teammates also noted that traditional tactics still worked. Strong discounts, clear urgency in email, and faster product listing pages from recent site updates still pushed them over the line.
The current shift pulled attention away from retailer homepages and toward AI driven surfaces where ranking depends on structured data and relevance, not merchandising alone.
Mobile, Timing, and Where Sessions Came From
Mobile cemented its lead. NRF reports that on Cyber Monday, 46.9 million consumers shopped via mobile, up from 40.4 million last year, and mobile remained the top device for online shopping. Shopify data reflects the same story. Average cart value across Shopify merchants reached 114.70 dollars, peak sales hit 5.1 million dollars per minute at 12:01 p.m. EST on Black Friday, and cross border orders accounted for 16 percent of all orders.
Email, SMS, and push notifications did not only support those sessions. Those channels drove a large share of revenue. Klaviyo reports that brands sent 22.7 billion messages during the BFCM period, up 25 percent year over year, generating 3.8 billion dollars in attributed revenue, up 27 percent. Email plus SMS accounted for 42 percent of BFCM sales for Klaviyo merchants.
Those messages and AI tools also shaped timing. Shoppers browsed early, then waited. Klaviyo saw more conversions late in the weekend, especially Sunday and Cyber Monday, as shoppers price checked across channels, watched promotions evolve, and then committed. Recharge saw similar behavior from subscription brands, with full month promotional arcs outperforming single day pushes.
What Our Partners Saw on the Ground
Across support, retention, personalization, and mobile, partner data all points in the same direction. Revenue growth outpaced order growth. Shoppers purchased fewer items, spent more, and rewarded brands that combined relevance with operational strength.
The numbers in this section come from data and commentary shared directly with Domaine by partners such as Gorgias, Recharge, Nosto, Tapcart, and Klaviyo, based on anonymized performance across their merchant bases.
Gorgias highlights that brands with conversational support outperformed by a wide margin. Merchants that leaned into chat and messaging saw conversion rates more than 50 percent higher than peers that relied on traditional support only. SMS driven sessions produced AOV that was roughly 134 percent higher year over year.
Top performers used AI assisted agents to handle surge volume while maintaining quality and response times during peak afternoon windows. Under performers lacked chat and messaging options and gave up a 51 percent conversion lift as a result.
Recharge reports that this BFCM was “bigger, earlier, and more strategically orchestrated.” Subscription focused brands built month long arcs instead of relying on a single hero offer. Health and Wellness brands saw close to 50 percent GMV growth. New subscribers increased 35 percent and new subscriptions rose 26 percent year over year.
The best performers used threshold and bundle promotions to lift average order value without wrecking margins and paired discounts with gifts or add ons aimed at long term retention rather than one time deal seekers. Under performers squeezed activity into a narrow window and leaned on flat percentage discounts, leaving subscription revenue and higher value baskets on the table.
Nosto saw brands shift away from blunt discounting toward value exchanges. Many brands tied discounts to loyalty accounts or list growth, offering deals in return for signups rather than public price slashing. Customers who saw cross sells or upsells at checkout or post purchase enjoyed experiences that felt more tailored. Those flows drove almost a 15 percent lift in AOV.
Personalized search results delivered a 10 percent higher click through rate than generic listings. Under performing brands skipped personalization and skipped cross sell logic, even as AI driven discovery pushed more new visitors their way.
On mobile, Tapcart shows what happens when brands treat apps as core revenue engines instead of nice-to-have add ons. Across Tapcart merchants, apps generated 71.7 million dollars in sales over BFCM weekend and 135.4 million dollars during Cyber Week, across 1.17 million app orders and 1.06 million unique app shoppers. AOV reached 115.29 dollars, higher than what many brands see on mobile web.
Top brands drove that performance with app exclusive benefits, early access, limited drops, and loyalty multipliers, plus structured push strategies that moved from early access, to launch, to last chance.
Under performers treated the app as a last minute channel, mirrored site experiences, and failed to build an install base before BFCM.
Klaviyo’s recap closes the loop. AI powered product recommendations drove a 71 percent increase in revenue from those messages, even as average discount depth dropped from around 29 percent to 26 percent. Personalization and lifecycle engagement did more work than blunt markdowns. The company captures that shift with one line. “Connection beats promotion.”
What Top Performers Did Differently (According to Our Partners)
Across the data and partner insights, top performers shared five moves.
First, AI sat in the critical path, not in a corner. Agents supported human teams in chat and SMS. AI engines powered recommendations, search, and triggered messages. Gorgias brands that leaned into AI powered agent assistance handled more volume while raising conversion and order values. Klaviyo brands that used AI driven recommendations saw a 71 percent revenue lift from those messages.
Second, the calendar shifted from a spike to a campaign. Recharge’s best brands treated November as a sequence. Teasers, list building, early subscriber offers, main BFCM promotions, and a second wave for Cyber Monday.
Early data from Adobe backs this, with strong spending from mid November onward, aided by big box retailers like Walmart kicking off sales around November 14. Brands that bet everything on a single day missed shoppers who had already used AI tools to pre decide what to buy and where.
Third, they sold value instead of racing to the bottom on price. Nosto clients tied discounts to loyalty and list growth and then used cross sells and personalization to push higher value baskets.
Recharge clients structured offers around thresholds and bundles to grow AOV while protecting margin. Winners shaped offers around that behavior instead of panicking into blanket 40 percent off banners.
Fourth, they treated mobile and owned channels as the primary arena. Tapcart numbers speak clearly. Higher AOV apps that deliver fast, focused experiences win high intent traffic and repeat sessions during the weekend. Klaviyo shows email and SMS driving nearly half of BFCM sales for many brands. NRF and Shopify data confirm that mobile dominated Cyber Monday and much of weekend shopping, and that independent brands on Shopify saw 81 million customers and record performance. Top brands coordinated push, SMS, and email to create a clear sequence of prompts, not a wall of noise.
Fifth, they prepared operations for AI era demand. Gorgias highlights strategic staffing for peak hours and fast response times during afternoon surges. Tapcart stresses performance and stability as campaigns flip on.
AI draws in higher intent traffic. That traffic turns into revenue only when support, site performance, inventory levels, and checkout flows hold up.
Where Brands Left Money on the Table
Under performers made familiar mistakes, but the cost of those mistakes rose this year because AI amplified differences.
No Conversational Support
Brands without chat and messaging missed the 50 plus percent conversion lift that Gorgias observed from conversational support. In an environment where many shoppers arrive from AI agents with specific questions and high intent, forcing those visitors to email or phone support leaves money unfinished.
Flat Discounts and Margin Erosion
Merchants that leaned on heavy sitewide discounts without structure gave away margin while failing to move shoppers up to higher value bundles. Recharge and Nosto both point to better outcomes from thresholds, bundles, loyalty gated offers, and subscriber only incentives. Those tactics match a consumer base that hunts for value but still trades up when an offer feels tailored.
Short Promotion Windows
Under performers compressed campaigns into a narrow window and ignored the extended demand curve that now runs across November. Many shoppers had already asked AI assistants to assemble shortlists and price histories much earlier. Brands that appeared late had no share of that consideration set.
No Personalization or Cross Sell Strategy
Nosto calls out brands that did not personalize search or recommendations and skipped cross sell logic outright. Those brands asked AI sourced visitors to wade through generic grids and missed the 10 percent CTR lift and 15 percent AOV lift seen from simple rules based personalization.
Treating Mobile Apps as an Afterthought
Tapcart’s under performers treated mobile apps like campaign billboards instead of core storefronts. They started install drives too late, mirrored the full website inside the app, and did not segment push notifications. As mobile continued to dominate holiday traffic, that choice meant losing high intent shoppers to rival brands with smoother experiences.
What to Do Before Next BFCM
For eCommerce and DTC leaders, the message is blunt. AI shaped this holiday peak, and the brands that thrived treated AI, mobile, and owned channels as a connected system.
Here are six concrete moves to execute over the next twelve months.
- Build an AI ready spine for discovery, support, and messaging: Ensure product data, pricing, inventory, and content are structured and machine readable. AI assistants depend on clean feeds and rich attributes. Firework’s analysis of AI driven holiday shopping stresses structured data, answer ready product pages, and clear trust signals as prerequisites for AI driven revenue growth. Add conversational search or guided shopping to your site. Layer AI support assistants into chat and SMS and instrument everything for conversion and AOV impact, not vanity metrics.
- Turn BFCM into a four week story, not a two day spike: Start planning November as a sequence. Early list building and subscriber acquisition. VIP and loyalty offers. Main BFCM promotions that reward higher value behavior such as bundles, thresholds, and subscriptions. Cyber Monday and “forgotten gifts” follow ups. Recharge’s data shows full month arcs with weekly offer refreshes outperform one shot campaigns on GMV and subscriber quality.
- Treat mobile and owned channels as the primary storefront: Invest in fast, focused mobile experiences. For many brands, that means a dedicated app. For others, a mobile web experience plus strong SMS and push programs. Tapcart’s numbers show apps driving AOV north of 115 dollars and meaningful revenue across the whole week. Klaviyo’s data shows email and SMS responsible for around 42 percent of BFCM sales.
Start driving app installs and SMS opt ins months before November, and plan channel specific sequences instead of duplicating site banners. 4. Redesign promotion strategy for margin and value: Move away from uniform percentage discounts. Pair modest headline discounts with smart structures. Threshold free shipping or gifts. Bundles. Subscriber only pricing. Offers tied to loyalty tiers or engagement behaviors such as joining SMS or submitting a review. Nosto’s clients saw higher AOV from cross sells and upsells at checkout and post purchase.
Recharge saw better subscription growth where brands paired promotions with clear ongoing value.
- Lock in retention during the peak: Treat every BFCM buyer as a future high value customer, not a one time deal seeker. Build flows that trigger after first purchase. Second purchase offers, replenishment reminders, subscriber upgrades, and loyalty nudges. Klaviyo’s numbers show the impact of lifecycle engagement at scale.
Tie those flows into AI generated recommendations so follow up messaging reflects real browsing and purchase behavior, not generic product pushes. 6. Stress test operations and data long before Q4: AI driven traffic brings high intent visitors who move fast. That magnifies every operational flaw. Gorgias points to the importance of staffing for peak hours and fast response times. Tapcart highlights performance under load for apps. Run performance tests on your site and app, rehearse playbooks with support and operations, and validate that data flowing into AI systems is accurate and fresh.
Key Takeaways
- Shoppers spent more, not on more items, but on fewer, higher value purchases. Online spending and mobile usage reached new highs.
- AI assistants moved from novelty to core decision layer. Visits from AI tools converted more often and influenced billions in sales.
- Top brands used AI, personalization, and full month promotional arcs to grow revenue without deeper discounts.
- Conversational support, structured cross sells, and loyalty based offers separated winners from brands that relied on flat discounts.
- Mobile apps and owned channels handled a large share of BFCM revenue, especially when brands provided app exclusive value and sequenced push, email, and SMS.
- Brands that treat AI, mobile, and retention as one connected system will set the pace next year. Everyone else will see AI agents hand high intent shoppers to a competitor.
