The holiday shopping landscape is shifting dramatically, and 2025 is shaping up to be unlike any Black Friday Cyber Monday we’ve seen before. Between rising costs, uncertain economic conditions, and rapidly evolving shopper expectations, retailers are facing a perfect storm of challenges and opportunities.
But here’s the thing: while the game is changing, the brands that understand these shifts and adapt quickly will absolutely crush it this season. We’ve been analyzing shopping behaviors, market trends, and consumer data to identify exactly what’s coming – and how smart retailers can get ahead of it.
Let’s dive into the six biggest changes that will define BFCM 2025 and what you need to do about them right now.
1. Consumers Will Prioritize Value Over Volume
The Trend: Consumers will prioritize value over volume, seeking deals, bundles, and loyalty rewards rather than buying more items or spending freely.
Rising economic pressure and uncertainty around tariffs are prompting consumers to shop more deliberately. Instead of buying several small or impulsive items, shoppers are focusing on finding the perfect gift. Even affordable products are being evaluated more carefully. Recent research shows that 31% of consumers plan to purchase fewer items this BFCM, while 35% intend to look for more deals and discounts.
How Releva Helps: This shift toward intentional shopping makes personalization more critical than ever. When customers are being more selective, every product recommendation must hit the mark. Our AI-powered personalization engine ensures that each visitor sees products that match their preferences, budget, and shopping intent – turning browsers into buyers even when they’re being more cautious with their spending.
Actionable Strategies:
- Create curated gift guides powered by AI that adapt to each visitor’s browsing behavior and preferences
- Implement dynamic pricing displays that highlight value propositions and savings for each customer segment
- Use behavioral data to identify price-sensitive customers and serve them targeted promotions automatically
- Personalize bundle recommendations based on individual shopping patterns and cart value optimization
2. Which channels deliver the most value in helping us achieve our goals?
The Trend: Consumers will demand hyper-relevant product recommendations, not generic blasts.
Overwhelmed with choice, consumers cite product discovery as their #1 challenge when shopping online. The good news? 77% of consumers say they are more likely to purchase with personalized product recommendations, and 99% are willing to share data in exchange for those relevant recommendations.
How Releva Helps: This is exactly what Releva was built for. Our deep-tech personalization engine goes beyond basic “customers who bought this also bought that” recommendations. We analyze real-time behavior, purchase history, browsing patterns, and engagement data to serve up products that each customer is most likely to love and buy.
Actionable Strategies:
- Deploy AI-powered product recommendations on every page, from homepage to checkout
- Build guided shopping flows that learn from customer interactions in real-time
- Implement smart search functionality that understands customer intent and personalizes results
- Create dynamic category pages that reorder products based on individual preferences
- Set up restock alerts for items customers have shown interest in but haven’t purchase
3. BFCM Will Stretch Into a Months-Long Cycle
The Trend: BFCM will evolve into a months-long shopping cycle, with earlier starts and less emphasis on Cyber Week itself.
Consumers are becoming more strategic and less event-driven. Cyber Week’s share of Q4 revenue has been slowly shrinking, and consumer data shows that 59% of consumers plan to start end-of-year holiday shopping before Black Friday—jumping to 66% among Gen Z and 61% of Millennials—with 17% of shoppers having already started by early August. Brands will need to prepare for longer campaigns and calendar-based drops that start as early as September.
How Releva Helps: Extended shopping seasons require sustained personalization that evolves with customer behavior over time. Our platform continuously learns and adapts, ensuring that the customer who browses in September gets increasingly relevant recommendations by November. We help brands maintain engagement throughout the extended season with personalized email campaigns, dynamic website content, and multichannel messaging.
Actionable Strategies:
- Launch early-bird campaigns with personalized product previews based on last year’s purchase data
- Create seasonal content calendars that evolve recommendations from early awareness to final purchase decisions
- Implement progressive profiling to build richer customer profiles throughout the extended shopping period
- Deploy retargeting campaigns that become more sophisticated as the season progresses
- Set up milestone-based messaging (e.g., “30 days until Black Friday”) with personalized product spotlights
4. AI-Powered Personalization Will Separate Winners from Losers
The Trend: Brands that use AI to personalize offers, timing, and content will dramatically outperform competitors.
AI is no longer experimental—it’s mission-critical for holiday success. Brands using AI-powered personalization are seeing significant revenue growth during peak shopping periods. Consumer expectations for personalization continue to rise: 81% of consumers ignore generic messages, while 71% expect brands to learn from their habits over time. Personalization drives loyalty too: 66% appreciate when brands remember preferences, 52% value relevant product suggestions, and 47% want recognition of past interactions.
How Releva Helps: This prediction is at the core of what we do. Our AI doesn’t just personalize product recommendations—it optimizes send times for emails, personalizes website layouts, customizes promotional offers, and even adjusts content tone based on customer preferences. We help brands think of personalization as the foundation of lasting customer relationships, not just a conversion tactic.
Actionable Strategies:
- Implement AI-optimized send times for email campaigns based on individual engagement patterns
- Deploy dynamic website personalization that adapts layout, content, and offers in real-time
- Create personalized discount strategies that balance profitability with customer value
- Use predictive analytics to identify customers most likely to churn and re-engage them with targeted offers
- Develop customer lifecycle campaigns that automatically adjust based on purchase behavior and engagement data
5. Mobile Commerce Will Drive Majority Growth
The Trend: Mobile commerce is set to fuel most of the e-commerce growth during the 2025 Cyber Week and end-of-year shopping season.
Industry data shows mobile is set to power 75% of all e-commerce growth this season and will account for more than half of overall festive spending. As more consumers shop via their phones, mobile optimization becomes a direct line to conversion. Brands must ensure a mobile-optimized shopping experience across their website and app, from product discovery to checkout.
How Releva Helps: Our personalization engine is built mobile-first, ensuring that every recommendation, every piece of content, and every user experience is optimized for mobile screens and behaviors. We understand that mobile shoppers behave differently—they’re often browsing in shorter bursts, in different contexts, and with different intent. Our AI adapts recommendations accordingly.
Actionable Strategies:
- Optimize mobile page load speeds while maintaining rich personalization
- Implement mobile-specific recommendation layouts that work beautifully on small screens
- Create thumb-friendly navigation that guides customers to personalized product collections
- Deploy mobile-optimized checkout flows with personalized upsells and cross-sells
- Use location-based personalization for mobile users (store pickup options, local inventory, etc.)
- Implement progressive web app features for app-like mobile experiences
6. Stock Information Becomes a Competitive Advantage
The Trend: Customers want complete transparency about what’s available and when they’ll get it.
Supply chain disruptions have made shoppers nervous about whether their orders will actually arrive on time. They’re starting holiday shopping earlier specifically to avoid disappointment, and they want clear information about inventory levels and shipping times.
Smart retailers are turning this challenge into an opportunity by being completely transparent about stock levels and delivery timelines.
How Releva Helps: Our platform integrates inventory data into personalization algorithms, ensuring customers see products that are actually available while creating appropriate urgency when stock is low. We can automatically adjust recommendations based on inventory levels and create personalized back-in-stock notifications that drive immediate action.
Actionable Strategies:
- Display real-time stock levels on personalized product recommendations
- Create urgency messaging that’s tailored to individual customer purchase patterns
- Implement intelligent back-in-stock alerts based on browsing and wishlist behavior
- Personalize shipping and delivery messaging based on customer location and order history
- Use inventory data to automatically promote alternative products when preferred items are low in stock
- Deploy countdown timers for limited inventory items, but only show them to customers likely to purchase
The Bottom Line: Secure end-of-year success by planning strategically and acting swiftly.
The 2025 holiday season will be unlike any other. With economic pressures, shifting consumer expectations, and fast-paced technology adoption, retailers must engage shoppers with smarter campaigns, earlier launches, and exceptional personalized value.
Brands that prioritize deep personalization, mobile-first experiences, and inventory transparency will be best positioned to build loyalty and drive revenue. The winners will be those who can make every customer feel like their shopping experience was designed specifically for them.
At Releva, we’ve built our entire platform around this vision. Our AI-powered personalization engine helps brands create those magical “this was made for me” moments that turn casual browsers into loyal customers and one-time buyers into brand advocates.
Ready to make this your most successful BFCM season yet? Book a personalized demo and discover how our deep-tech personalization can transform your holiday performance.
If you’re a Releva customer and want to dive deeper into these trends and strategies, connect with your CSM—we’re ready to help you make this your most successful season ever.
