eMarketer Forecasts 7.3% Growth in Cyber Five Retail E-commerce Sales
eMarketer forecasts that retail e-commerce sales during Cyber Five will grow 7.3% year over year in 2026, while online sales on Thanksgiving will rise 8.5% year over year to $6.9 billion. Promotional demand is expected to emerge earlier.
What are the key facts?
- 1Cyber Five retail e-commerce sales forecast to grow 7.3% year over year
- 2Cyber Five expected to account for 16.5% of US online holiday spending
- 3Online Thanksgiving sales forecast at $6.9 billion
- 4Online Thanksgiving sales forecast to grow 8.5% year over year
What happened?
eMarketer released its US Thanksgiving and year-end consumer forecast on November 10, 2026. The report forecasts that retail e-commerce sales during Cyber Five will increase 7.3% year over year, accounting for approximately 16.5% of total US online holiday spending. Online sales on Thanksgiving are expected to reach $6.9 billion, up 8.5% year over year. The forecast indicates that traffic and orders will not be concentrated only on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Platforms and retailers are bringing demand forward through early discounts, phased promotions, and longer campaign periods. For cross-border sellers, home goods, consumer electronics, gifts, beauty, apparel, and low-priced impulse-buy products may convert earlier, but early promotions may also reduce pricing flexibility later in the event. Sellers must also calculate discounts, coupons, platform commissions, warehousing, and peak-season delivery surcharges together to avoid sales growth accompanied by lower actual profit.
What does this mean for cross-border sellers?
eMarketer forecasts 7.3% year-over-year growth in Cyber Five retail e-commerce sales, with online Thanksgiving sales expected to increase 8.5% year over year, indicating that demand may emerge before Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Sellers should incorporate a longer promotional period into inventory, advertising, and pricing plans and calculate discounts, coupons, platform commissions, warehousing, and peak-season delivery surcharges together to avoid higher sales but lower profit.
What should sellers do now?
- 1Enter discounts, coupons, platform commissions, warehousing, and peak-season delivery surcharges for home goods, consumer electronics, gifts, beauty, apparel, and low-priced impulse-buy products into a profit calculator, and confirm item by item that promotions remain profitable.Profit calculator
- 2Create a phased replenishment table for key categories, matching available inventory and inventory in transit with the early-promotion schedule. Complete an inventory check to avoid committing all inventory to a single promotional day and retain the resulting table.Procurement List
- 3Split the advertising budget across early promotions, Thanksgiving, and Black Friday and Cyber Monday activities. Create a budget table by key category and check whether each phase preserves pricing flexibility for later campaigns.Listing Optimizer