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November 5, 2026 | Toronto, ON

From early lists to last-minute gifts

 The holiday rush is coming, but retailers can prepare for shoppers spending in waves.

Troy David

Senior Analyst, Mastercard Economics Institute

For retailers, the holiday season is a race against the clock, one long sprint to the finish line. But the holiday rush does not always arrive all at once and in one clean wave. It can build early, accelerate around Black Friday, pause for a bit, shift across categories and surge again in the final days before Christmas.

New analysis from the Mastercard Economics Institute (MEI) suggests that the holiday season in Canada is better understood as a series of spending waves, each shaped by different shoppers, products and purchasing journeys. For retailers, that means the opportunity is not limited to capturing the biggest rush. It is also about recognizing what customers are doing before and after it.

A resilient consumer is shopping this holiday season

Canadian consumers are heading into the 2026 holiday season on solid footing. MEI expects Canadian holiday retail sales, excluding gas and autos, to increase 3.5% year over year between November 1 and Boxing Day on December 26.

That would be an acceleration from the past three holiday seasons, when sales grew by 3.0% in 2023, 0.5% in 2024 and 1.5% in 2025. Online sales are expected to grow by approximately 5.0%, compared with 3.4% growth in stores.

This forecast reflects an ability to spend, even accounting for higher prices and global uncertainty. Gains in services employment, federal transfers to low- and middle-income households, and healthier household balance sheets have supported spending. Inflation is expected to account for approximately 2.0 percentage points of the projected 3.5% increase, with higher purchasing volumes contributing about 1.5 percentage points.

Some shoppers are getting an early start

During the 2025 holiday season, MEI compared aggregated and anonymized transaction data from Canadian consumers with paid AI subscriptions, referred to as AI power users, with spending from consumers without those subscriptions.

AI power users spent a larger share of their holiday dollars earlier in the season than non-AI power users, with the gap widest in the weeks before Black Friday in 2025.

That earlier activity was particularly visible in camera and photography retailers and bookstores. It suggests a group of shoppers getting ahead of their lists, comparing options and making selected purchases before the traditional holiday rush begins.

But early planning does not necessarily mean the season ends early.

Toy spending followed a more complicated path. AI power users allocated a greater share of their spending to the weeks before Black Friday, a smaller share to early December and a greater share to the final week before Christmas.

In other words, early planning does not eliminate last-minute shopping. For some categories, shopping activity stretches across the season. Consumers may begin researching and buying early, while demand rises again as the holidays approach.

Turning shopping patterns into a series of business decisions

For retailers, the holiday season is not one shopping moment but a series of opportunities. Early researchers, Black Friday bargain hunters and last-minute gift buyers each bring different needs and expectations.

Understanding when demand is building can help retailers adjust inventory, staffing, promotions and fulfillment throughout the season. The goal is not to predict every purchase, but to remain flexible enough to respond.

The retailers best positioned to capture growth will prepare for the full arc of holiday shopping. Because the season may have one finish line, but it does not have one starting point.

About Mastercard

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