Gift Cards and AI-Ready Content Shape a $275 Billion Online Holiday Season

Gift cards are becoming a central budgeting tool for U.S. holiday shoppers just as Adobe forecasts that online spending will reach a record $275.1 billion during November and December 2026. The combination gives ecommerce merchants, video-commerce sellers and direct-response marketers a clearer view of the season: consumers still plan to spend, but many want fixed-value gifts, earned rewards and content that helps them avoid poor product choices.

Blackhawk Network’s annual study found that 82% of surveyed consumers are establishing holiday budgets. Among those budget setters, 93% plan to purchase gift cards. Respondents expect to spend an average of $721 on holiday gifts, 3% less than in Blackhawk’s year-earlier pre-holiday survey. Planned spending fell 13% among households earning less than $40,000.

Those lower-income shoppers expect gift cards to represent 36% of their gifting budgets, compared with 29% among households earning at least $80,000. Open-loop cards from Visa and Mastercard are preferred by 74% of younger shoppers and 61% of older shoppers. Grocery gift cards interest 42% of respondents, followed by mass-merchant cards at 33% and gas or electric-vehicle charging cards at 24%.

Blackhawk also found that half of respondents plan to redeem most or all of their loyalty points during the holidays. Artificial intelligence is moving closer to the transaction: 40% said they would click a promotional link when AI recommends a gift-card offer, while one in five would purchase without further research. Blackhawk CEO and President Talbott Roche said this makes accurate product information, understandable value and a simple purchase path increasingly important.

Practical Ecommerce contributor Armando Roggio offered a related content strategy for November: replace generic gift lists with an “anti-gift guide” that identifies who should—and should not—buy a particular item. His espresso-machine example would address counter space, cleaning, grind adjustment, learning curve and coffee habits, giving shoppers and generative-AI platforms more useful product-fit information.

The stakes are substantial. Adobe expects Cyber Week to generate $47.5 billion online, including $15.1 billion on Cyber Monday and $12.9 billion on Black Friday. It forecasts mobile devices will produce 57.4% of full-season digital sales, with the share reaching 63% on Thanksgiving.

ConsumerEXP analysis: Sellers using television, streaming, social video or digital storefronts should connect demonstrations and promotional content to mobile-friendly checkout, clearly priced gift-card offers and specific product-fit guidance. In a discount-heavy season, measurable value and reduced purchase uncertainty may matter as much as reach.