Is Your Shopify Store Ready for Holiday Shopping That Starts in September?
More than half of shoppers say they're starting holiday buying earlier this year. Here's what that actually means for a Shopify store right now.
If your holiday plan starts the week before Black Friday, you're already behind. Not by a little. Shopper behaviour has genuinely shifted this year, and the data on it is more concrete than the usual "get ready for the holidays" advice suggests.
The shopper is already thinking about it
Similarweb's 2026 Holiday Planning Report found that 50.7% of surveyed consumers expect to start planning their holiday purchases earlier this year than in previous years. That finding has been independently confirmed by two separate outlets analysing the same research, not just repeated once and echoed everywhere, which gives it real weight.
The same research found consumers are approaching the season differently in a few consistent ways: 30.2% say they're comparing more retailers than they did two or three years ago, 29.9% are more likely to wait for major sales events even while starting to look earlier, and 27.0% report spending more time researching a product before buying it.
Put together, that's not one big rush toward Black Friday. It's a longer, slower-building season where a shopper might see your product in September, think about it through October, and only actually buy in late November. If your store only shows up for them in the last two weeks, you've missed most of that window.
What last year actually looked like
For scale, the National Retail Federation's 2025 holiday numbers give a useful benchmark. Holiday sales (November and December) topped $1 trillion for the first time, growing 3.7 to 4.2% year over year, with the average shopper spending $890.49, the second-highest figure in the survey's 23-year history. Online and other non-store sales specifically grew 8 to 9%, reaching roughly $312 to $315 billion, up from $289 billion the year before.
Worth noting honestly: NRF typically releases its specific holiday forecast for the current year in October, so an exact 2026 number wasn't available at the time of writing. What's already clear from the earlier-shopping research is the direction: online spending keeps growing, and the season keeps stretching earlier.
What "ready" actually means right now
Getting ready for a longer season isn't the same as getting ready for a shorter, more intense one. A few things matter more than they used to:
- Your product pages need to work in September, not just November. If a shopper is researching now and buying in six weeks, your product pages are doing the persuading long before any Black Friday banner goes up.
- Gift-focused content and collections earn their keep earlier. A "gifts for coffee lovers" or "gifts under £30" page indexed and live now has time to actually rank before the search volume peaks.
- Inventory and messaging need to hold up over a longer stretch, not just survive one chaotic week. A promotion planned for a single Friday doesn't serve a shopper who's been quietly comparing options since September.
- First-time, uncertain buyers make up a larger share of holiday traffic than usual. Gift buyers are shopping for someone else, often in a category they don't know well, and they're doing more comparing and researching than an average shopper. A store that helps them decide confidently, rather than leaving them to compare specs across five open tabs, has a real edge in exactly the kind of longer, deliberate season this year's data describes. A short gift-finder quiz is one honest way to do that, since it's built for precisely this kind of unfamiliar, high-stakes, indecisive purchase. It's the corner of this problem we work on at Suggesto, though the same principle works with a well-written buying guide too.
Key takeaways
The headline number worth remembering is 50.7%, more than half of shoppers say they're starting earlier this year, independently confirmed research, not a single vendor's guess. That changes what "holiday-ready" means: less about surviving one intense week, more about having your product pages, gift content, and buying guidance genuinely working weeks before the traditional rush even begins.
Frequently Asked Questions
When do most people start holiday shopping in 2026?
Similarweb's 2026 Holiday Planning Report found 50.7% of consumers expect to start planning their holiday purchases earlier this year than in previous years, a finding independently confirmed by multiple outlets analysing the same data.
How much did holiday ecommerce grow last year?
According to the National Retail Federation, online and other non-store holiday sales grew 8 to 9% in 2025, reaching approximately $312 to $315 billion, as part of a holiday season that topped $1 trillion in total retail sales for the first time.
What should a small Shopify store do to prepare for an earlier holiday season?
Focus on product pages and gift-focused content being ready and indexed well before Black Friday, since research shows shoppers are researching and comparing earlier and over a longer period this year. Helping uncertain, first-time gift buyers decide confidently is also more valuable given how much more comparison shoppers report doing.
Is Black Friday still the most important holiday shopping moment?
It remains significant, but the shopping season around it has stretched considerably. Research shows a large share of shoppers are researching and even buying well before the traditional Black Friday rush, making earlier readiness increasingly important.
References
- National Retail Federation. Multiple 2025/2026 holiday sales press releases and forecasts.
- Similarweb. 2026 Holiday Planning Report, via independent analysis from DataReportal and eMarketer.
- eMarketer. The 2026 Holiday Shopper Is More Deliberate and Increasingly AI-Guided.