Business news

Retailers Double Down on Omnichannel for Q4 Holiday Push

New York, November 19, 2025 — With only five shopping weekends left until Christmas, national chains and DTC brands are accelerating omnichannel investments to capture what Boston Consulting Group projects could be a record $1.15 trillion in U.S. holiday spend. Unified commerce—integrating store inventory, retail-media ads, mobile apps, and last-mile fulfillment—has moved from pilot to profit center, accounting for 16.3 % of total domestic media budgets this year and on pace to surpass 24 % by 2028, according to Statista.

“Holiday 2025 is the proving ground for connected retail,” said Maya Chen, CEO of ShopBridge Analytics. “Chains that treat stores as billboards, fulfillment hubs, and data nodes are seeing a 9.5 % annual revenue lift and 7.5 % lower cost-to-serve.”

Chen’s assessment is echoed by Google measurement showing omnichannel tactics drive 80 % more store trips and a 4 % higher in-store ticket. The behavior is fueled by consumers averaging nearly six touchpoints—83 % start online before visiting a store, while 72 % use a phone inside a store to compare or review, Klarna’s Shopping Pulse found. Retailers that synchronize pricing, promotions, and inventory across those touchpoints retain 89 % of customers, versus 33 % for single-channel operators.

Channel Key research released last month estimates Cyber Monday alone will hit $14.2 billion, but warns that keyword costs on Amazon DSP and Walmart Connect have risen 18 % YoY. To protect margin, marketers are reallocating 20 % of search budgets to upper-funnel video and Connected-TV, formats that deliver 25 % higher engagement during gift-buying season. Concurrently, AI-driven Performance Max campaigns—spanning Search, YouTube, Discover, and Maps—are producing 17–33 % better ROAS than legacy programmatic buys, according to TransUnion’s 2024 meta-analysis.

“Feed health is the new shelf health,” Chen noted. “Retailers who audit product titles, local inventory feeds, and store-sales data before Thanksgiving capture up to 5 % more omnichannel conversions in December.”

Operational upgrades are matching the media blitz. Curbside pickup is projected to reach $154.3 billion in U.S. sales this year as 72 million shoppers—one in four consumers—opt for the service, a 12 % YoY increase. Target, Macy’s, and Dick’s Sporting Goods have all expanded same-day order-ready windows to four hours, while UPS and FedEx added 14 million square feet of seasonal sortation space to avoid the 2021 delivery gridlock. The push is timely: 51 % of holiday shoppers told BCG they would abandon carts if guaranteed delivery slips past December 23.

Early results are filtering in. Apparel chain Everlane reported a 27 % lift in November digital revenue after linking mobile push notifications to real-time store inventory, and electronics retailer Best Buy saw store-visit rates jump 14 % when local search ads highlighted “in-stock today” messaging. Conversely, Gap cut its Q4 guidance Monday after conceding ecommerce fulfillment bottlenecks shaved 1.5 % off comparable sales, underscoring the downside of fragmented systems.

About ShopBridge Analytics

ShopBridge Analytics is a retail-intelligence firm that helps omnichannel brands unify data across POS, e-commerce, and retail-media networks. Its cloud platform is used by 120+ North American retailers to optimize inventory, pricing, and marketing in real time.