Online holiday retail sales are expected to pass $300 billion for the first time in 2026, accounting for 21.5% of all holiday sales, according to eMarketer forecasts cited by Talk Business & Politics.
Mobile is expected to account for much of the increase.
Smartphone sales are forecasted to reach $174.91 billion, or 58% of online holiday sales, and contribute 71.8% of the incremental dollars added to eCommerce this season.
Overall holiday retail sales, however, are expected to grow just 4.1%, leaving retailers with less room to make up for lost purchases through stronger demand alone.
That makes the mobile buying experience harder to ignore.
As a leading U.S. web design and digital development agency, UPQODE works on Shopify and WooCommerce sites where speed, navigation, carts, and payment flows can all affect whether someone actually finishes a purchase.
CEO Nicolae Pasecinic says that retailers should look closely at those conversion points before peak season.
"When nearly three-quarters of the new online dollars are expected to come through mobile, retailers need to look closely at what happens after someone reaches the site," he explains.
"If checkout is slow, awkward, or unreliable on a phone, more traffic won't solve that problem."
YouTube channel, Tutorials by Manizha & Ryan, walks through Shopify checkout changes designed to reduce friction and improve conversion:
Mobile Drives Most Holiday eCommerce Growth
Online sales are expected to grow faster than store sales this holiday season, while consumers are becoming more careful about how they spend.
eMarketer expects physical-store holiday sales to rise 3.4%, while total holiday retail sales are forecast to exceed $1.41 trillion.
Price sensitivity is shaping shopping behavior as well:
- 42.7% of consumers say they're more price sensitive than a year ago
- 31.7% plan to shop earlier
- 30.2% expect to compare prices across retailers
- 29.9% are postponing purchases for major sales events
Pasecinic adds that retailers should judge mobile performance by what customers can actually complete once they move from browsing to buying.
"A mobile storefront can look good and still make checkout harder than it needs to be," he says.
"You have to follow the whole path. Can someone find the product, choose an option, enter their details, pay, and know the order went through without fighting the interface?"
Why Mobile Checkout Performance Matters
Salesforce reported 18% growth in global digital traffic during the second quarter, while order volume rose just 1%.
Those figures cover a broader global period than the U.S. holiday forecast, but they show that more visits don't necessarily produce more orders.
Pasecinic says a useful mobile review starts with the buying journey itself.
"Test it on the device the customer is actually using," he explains.
"Go through the checkout on a phone. Try the promo code. Change the cart. Use the payment options. See what happens when something fails. Those are the problems shoppers notice immediately."
YouTube channel, Fulfillman, walks through Shopify checkout settings that can affect payment choices, discounts, and the path to purchase:
What Retailers Should Fix Before Holiday Peak
The closer retailers get to peak holiday traffic, the less room there is for risky changes.
Pasecinic says teams should focus first on the problems closest to the sale, including:
- Slow product and cart pages
- Unnecessary checkout fields
- Broken payment options
- Error messages that don't tell shoppers what went wrong
- Mobile layouts that make key actions harder to complete
- Theme, plugin, checkout, or payment integration changes that haven't been tested before going live
"I would rather fix three things we know are getting in the way of a purchase than rush through 20 changes because they're sitting on a backlog," Pasecinic says.
"Before the holidays, the priority should be the problems customers are most likely to hit when they're trying to buy."
For retailers deciding where to spend the remaining pre-holiday development budget, the question is straightforward.
How much revenue is your current mobile checkout leaving behind?
