Salesforce has revealed comprehensive results for the 2025 holiday shopping season (November 1–December 31), showing record online sales of $1.29 trillion globally—driven by a strong impact from AI and agents on sales performance. Despite higher average product prices, year-over-year sales growth reached 7% globally, proving the sustained strength of consumption throughout the shopping period.
Consumers Embraced AI Agents in 2025
The year 2025 marked a turning point for a new generation of AI-powered search—the share of global traffic from external AI search channels, such as ChatGPT and Perplexity, doubled compared to the previous year. While these channels are still developing, they already deliver customers with very high purchase intent. Customers arriving at retailer sites via AI channels converted nine times more often than those coming from social media.
Branded agents belonging to retailers also contributed to sales growth—while simultaneously increasing team efficiency. Companies utilizing their own AI agents, including Salesforce clients such as Pandora, SharkNinja, and Funko, recorded a 59% higher sales growth rate—averaging 6.2% year-over-year growth compared to 3.9% for retailers without such solutions. Shoppers used AI technology and agents for customer service 126% more frequently during the holiday peak than in the two preceding months.
During the peak season, AI agents became crucial for providing 24/7 customer service. December brought a 66% increase in the number of conversations handled by agentic AI compared to November, and interactions during Christmas week and Boxing Day rose by 12% year-over-year. Beyond answering questions, agents managed to perform 142% more tasks than in the two previous months—including updating delivery addresses and initiating returns, which are time-consuming tasks for human consultants.
A Deeper Look at the 2025 Shopping Season
Physical stores still matter: Nearly one in five orders this season was fulfilled via the BOPIS (Buy Online, Pick Up In-Store) model. However, as customers rushed to finalize last-minute purchases, this ratio rose to one in three orders during the final five days before Christmas.
Rise in returns: Over $181 billion worth of online purchases from the November 1–December 31 period have already been returned. This constitutes 14% of all purchases and represents a 10% increase in returns compared to last year. Products purchased in physical stores during the final four days before Christmas have the highest probability of being returned in January.
Consumer purchasing power remains strong: Throughout the holiday season, the average selling price (ASP) of sold products increased globally by 7% year-over-year. Despite higher prices, customers were not deterred—the number of orders this season grew by 3% globally compared to last year.
Intensive pre-purchase browsing: In the 2025 holiday season, customers were characterized by higher resilience and inquisitiveness—online traffic grew globally by 13% compared to last year’s volumes, decisively outperforming the corresponding growth rate from the previous year (1%).
“THE 2025 HOLIDAY SEASON MARKED A TURNING POINT TOWARD ‘AGENTIC’ COMMERCE. WHILE CONSUMERS REMAINED RESILIENT IN THE FACE OF HIGHER PRICES, WHAT WAS TRULY GROUND-BREAKING WAS HOW RETAILERS RELIED ON AI AND AGENTS TO HANDLE THE HOLIDAY SHOPPING RUSH. AGENTS NOT ONLY GENERATED $262 BILLION IN SALES THROUGH HIGH-INTENT SEARCH, BUT THEY ALSO BECAME THE OPERATIONAL HEROES OF THE SEASON, HANDLING 142% MORE TASKS LIKE RETURNS AND SHIPMENT UPDATES. THIS WASN’T JUST A BIGGER SEASON THAN A YEAR AGO; IT WAS A MORE EFFICIENT AND SMARTER SEASON,” ASSESSES CAILA SCHWARTZ, DIRECTOR OF CONSUMER INSIGHTS AT SALESFORCE.
Salesforce 2025 Holiday Data Methodology
The holiday data was developed based on Agentforce 360, Agentforce Commerce, Agentforce Marketing, and Agentforce Service tools. Salesforce analyzed aggregated data from the activity of over 1.5 billion shoppers worldwide across more than 89 countries, with particular emphasis on 18 key markets: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, the Asia-Pacific region (excluding Japan, Australia, and New Zealand), Switzerland, Latin America (LAM), the Middle East and Africa (MEA), Eastern Europe, Belgium, and the Nordic countries. This rich database allows for a deep look at the last nine quarters and the current state of digital commerce.
The presented data result from Salesforce’s proprietary research. Calculations combine first- and third-party data and take into account several market assumptions.
