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It’s nearing that time of year again — the holiday season is approaching, and brands and retailers are preparing their end-of-year sales plans. Digiday+ Research examined which commerce channels are dominating their holiday strategies this year. We also looked at the discounts brands and retailers are offering and the revenue expectations that are guiding their marketing decisions during the essential fourth quarter.
To do so, Digiday+ Research surveyed 68 brand and retailer professionals about their past and current use of sales channels during the holidays, their past and current holiday marketing tactics, as well as how their current holiday season discounts and holiday revenue expectations compare to last year’s. We also interviewed executives at the Fwrd Group and NEOM Wellbeing to learn about their plans and expectations for the upcoming holiday sales season.
Here’s what we found:
In Digiday+ Research’s holiday report last year, brands and retailers told Digiday they were optimistic about consumers’ 2024 seasonal spending. This year, on the other hand, brands and retailers are expressing conservative expectations for their 2025 holiday revenue. More than half of survey respondents (56%) said that they expect their 2025 holiday revenue to either remain flat compared with 2024 or to increase by 10% or less, while 8% of respondents said they expect holiday revenue to decrease this year.
Brands’ and retailers’ conservative revenue expectations are likely being driven in part by the economic turbulence that has accompanied President Donald Trump’s tariffs. According to Inmar Intelligence’s 2025 Holiday Forecast Report, economics will heavily shape consumers’ 2025 holiday shopping behavior. Last year, inflation caused the majority of Americans (85%) to cut back on discretionary holiday spending, and 50% of people said they are still experiencing economic difficulties, according to the report.
Amy Kapolnek, founder of the Fwrd Group, a growth consulting firm for independent brands, said she expects 2025 holiday revenue to be flat or for there to be only single-digit growth in comparison to 2024. “We’re still in the economic downturn,” Kapolnek said. “The costs of living are rising, and now we have tariffs. … By the time the holiday season hits, we will start to see that trickle down to the consumer. Consumers have less disposable income to spend, and because of that, they’re making extremely conscious decisions about where to spend.”
Some brands and retailers are expressing optimism heading into this holiday season, however. More than one-third of survey respondents (37%) said they expect 2025 holiday revenue to increase by 11% or more, in comparison to 2024. Of those respondents, about half said they expect revenue to increase by more than 30%.
Following the conservative revenue expectations for the 2025 holiday season, many brands and retailers said they don’t have plans to offer deeper holiday discounts this year compared to last year. Sixty-seven percent of brand and retailer pros said that they expect their 2025 holiday discounts to be about the same as their 2024 discounts.
Instead of offering deeper discounts, some retailers and brands are considering other strategies to boost fourth-quarter revenue, including targeting new customers in their advertising efforts. Sixty percent of brand and retailer pros said that the primary audience for their 2025 holiday advertising is new customers. That’s up 8 percentage points from the 52% of brands and retailers who said the same last year.
Amanda Kahn, svp and gm for the U.S. market at skin-care and wellness brand NEOM Wellbeing, said that the fourth quarter offers a prime opportunity to transform prospective buyers into permanent customers. “You spend the first three quarters of the year trying to acquire a consumer, so that you spend the last quarter of the year converting them,” Khan said. “We know our returning customers will come back for things they’re loyal to. … From a gifting perspective, we can target our existing customers with ongoing or limited-edition products that are giftable, or we can acquire customers through a hero SKU strategy because so many of our best sellers are also giftable.”
Digital marketing tactics will continue to hold importance for brands and retailers this holiday season. Digiday’s survey found that the vast majority of brand and retailer pros (81%) said they plan to use digital and social media ads during the 2025 holiday season, making it the top holiday marketing tactic this year, followed by the 50% of respondents who said they plan to use brand experiences and 48% who said they plan to use gift guides.
NEOM Wellbeing’s Kahn said the wellness brand is adjusting its 2025 holiday strategy away from traditional public relations events, like hosting a holiday cocktail party, and toward social media strategies. “We’re going deeper into holiday mailers from both an editorial and influencer perspective to highlight micro-moments of wellness throughout the day,” Kahn said. “[A customer] might receive a package that shows them how to get an energy boost at 3 p.m. instead of the brand asking them to expend their energy by going to the umpteenth invite in the midst of all of the things going on this holiday.”
“We’re also doubling down on editorial or influencer partners who are either organic and authentic friends of the brand or understand the wellness category,” she added. “What we create are more meaningful relationships with those partners.”
Interestingly, Digiday’s survey found that the marketing tactics brands and retailers plan to use for the 2025 holiday season don’t quite align with the tactics they said have historically performed the best for their holiday marketing efforts. For example, haul and unboxing videos ranked fourth among the marketing tactics respondents said they plan to use for the 2025 holiday season. However, haul and unboxing videos ranked fifth (along with product collaborations) among the marketing tactics that survey respondents said have historically performed the best for their companies during the holiday season.
Because haul and unboxing videos seem to be a more popular marketing strategy than they are an effective sales tool during the holiday period, brands and retailers could consider reevaluating their marketing mix and where these videos fit in to prioritize better-performing strategies. For example, Digiday’s survey found that pop-up shops have historically performed well for brands and retailers as a marketing strategy (they ranked No. 4 among the tactics that have historically performed the best in both 2025 and 2024), in comparison to brands’ and retailers’ predicted usage of the tactic (pop-up shops ranked No. 6 among the tactics respondents said they plan to use in both 2024 and 2025).
However, it’s important to take into account that the cost of different marketing tactics — for example, pop-up shops can be expensive to implement — often play a role when it comes to which strategies brands and retailers choose to rely on during the holiday season. The Fwrd Group’s Kapolnek said the consulting firm encourages clients to build strategic partnerships with influencers, content creators and complementary brands to rein in marketing spend.
“We’ve noticed that those collaborations give reach and credibility without burning through a budget,” Kapolnek said. “If the [client] is in retailers, we try to get on [a retailer’s] in-store activation calendar as soon as possible. … If the brand does have a budget, we lean into paid media across all social, Google and Amazon.”
Kapolnek also noted that the timing of sales is equally as important as the marketing channels brands use during the holiday season. “For the last few years, I’ve launched what I call a pre-holiday sale at the end of September or early October to capture more revenue than slowly relying on BFCM [Black Friday, Cyber Monday],” she said. “Some brands still [contain sales to] the weekend of Black Friday into Cyber Monday. They’re literally leaving money on the table.”
“Consumers are busy. It’s the holiday season. They’re traveling and planning Thanksgiving,” she added. “It typically takes a week to reach the customers’ attention and then to actually have them make that purchase. … The bottom line for the strategy portion is that we’re disciplined about promotional calendars. We don’t want to give away the horse and the cart, and we don’t want to dilute the brand value by discounting it all the time.”
Overall, Digiday’s survey found that brands and retailers plan to use the same sales channels during the 2025 holiday season that they used in 2024 — in the same order of importance. Eighty-four percent of survey respondents said they plan to use owned e-commerce sites this holiday season, making it the top sales channel for 2025, followed by social commerce (which 69% of respondents said they plan to use) and retailers other than Amazon (41% said they’ll use this channel).
The biggest year-over-year change is that, while Amazon kept the No. 4 rank among holiday sales channels from last year to this year, the percentage of survey respondents who said their companies plan to sell via Amazon saw a significant decrease this year. Forty-six percent of brand and retailer pros told Digiday they plan to use Amazon as a sales channel during the 2025 holiday season, an 18 percentage point decrease for that sales channel from 2024. Meanwhile, the percentage of brands and retailers that said they plan to use digital marketplaces other than Amazon saw a small increase in 2025 — up 4 percentage points year over year.
Brands’ and retailers’ plans to shift away from using Amazon as a sales channel for the 2025 holidays may be due to the company’s recent policy changes and seller-fee increases, making room for other platforms to attract sellers.
Additionally, internal Amazon data reviewed by Reuters showed that Prime sign-ups in the U.S. heading into its Prime Day sales event failed to meet 2024’s total, despite Amazon doubling the length of the sales event to four days this year. The data showed that Amazon registered 5.4 million U.S. sign-ups over the 21-day run-up to Prime Day and the four-day event this year — about 116,000 fewer than during the same period a year earlier and 106,000 below the company’s own goal, a roughly 2% decline in both metrics. It’s possible that Amazon’s popularity among consumers could be decreasing slightly, which is reflected in brands’ pullback on using Amazon as a sales channel during the 2025 holiday season.
This was also reflected in survey responses when Digiday asked brands and retailers whether specific sales channels increase in importance during the holiday season. Thirty-seven percent of this year’s survey respondents said Amazon grows more important as a sales channel for their company during the holidays, versus 49% of respondents who said the same last year — a drop of 12 percentage points. Additionally, 6% of survey respondents said that Amazon will grow less important as a sales channel during the holidays this year.
Meanwhile, brands and retailers said that digital marketplaces other than Amazon will increase in importance as a sales channel during the holidays. Twenty-nine percent of marketers said said digital marketplaces other than Amazon grow more important during the holidays compared to 18% in 2024.
Amazon’s place in brands’ holiday marketing strategies should not be discounted, though. The Fwrd Group’s Kapolnek said many of the independent brands the consulting firm works with have increased their use of Amazon this year. “They’re really leaning into Amazon,” Kapolnek said. “I think Amazon is soon to be the leading platform for product discovery, outranking Google. … That’s because it’s way easier to search. You’re not hit with all of this paid media. And Google is very much a pay-to-play platform now. Amazon is too big for really any brand to ignore.”
However, she added that the platform does not work for every brand. “There is a caveat,” Kapolnek said. “Certain brands need more initial education, and Amazon can’t provide that. So [Amazon] could be a sales channel down the road, once there is more solid brand recognition.”
NEOM Wellbeing’s Kahn reiterated Amazon’s importance for holiday sales. “If you’re looking for the best product in the most convenient way to get it, Amazon is your channel,” Kahn said. “If you are looking for a 360-degree brand experience, then Amazon is not the channel for you. There are other channels to do that with, including traditional wholesale channels, department stores and specialty stores. But, we have not pulled away from Amazon in any way.”
For the second year in a row, social commerce ranked as the No. 2 sales channel brands and retailers said their companies plan to use as part of their holidays strategies in 2025.
TikTok Shop is a particularly interesting example to look at ahead of the holiday season. According to a study from Capital One Shopping, in 2024, there were about 47.2 million shoppers on TikTok, up 34.2% from 2023. And, in 2023, TikTok generated $3.84 billion in consumer spending worldwide.
And ad spending on the platform continues to rise. According to estimates shared with Digiday by MediaRadar, brand spending on TikTok grew from $542 million in April to $588 million in May this year.
But the Frwd Group’s Kapolnek said it can be tricky for brands to establish a presence on TikTok Shop. “It’s not easy to get set up on TikTok Shop. It’s not easy to operate,” she said. “If you’re able to, that’s definitely a strategy where you’re leaning into the TikTok influencers and ads to drive traffic to the shop. If it is seamlessly set up, it can drive immeasurable revenue. But, TikTok Shop doesn’t necessarily need seasonal storytelling as much as a general social media presence does.”
NEOM Wellbeing’s Kahn said that she believes social commerce, in general, is the path forward for brands who are looking to meet consumers where they shop, whether that’s on TikTok or another platform. “While they may not be consuming media in an old-fashioned magazine, they are still looking for expert content,” Kahn said. “They’re just consuming content differently. … They’re doing it from this device. … There are many opportunities right now in social commerce: It’s Meta, it’s TikTok, it’s Amazon’s Shop Live. We’re only at the beginning of what this looks like.”
