How Can My Brand Prepare for the 2025 Holiday Season?

With 2025 well underway, marketers are asking an important question: How can my brand prepare for the 2025 holiday season?

In a year marked by constant volatility, many brands have had to be nimble and adaptable, adjusting to the global landscape. When it comes to commerce, it’s no longer enough to “do what worked last year.” To win this season, brands must focus on the latest commerce trends, stay close to the data, and adapt in real time.

MikMak took a look at insights across more than 2,500 global brands to provide you with the tools it takes for your brand to win this 2025 holiday season. In this high-stakes time of year, brands should focus on:

Accelerating sales and growing market share by: 

• Making every consumer touchpoint shoppable 

• Equipping teams with the right consumer, channel, and retailer insights

Driving profitability and reducing costs by: 

• Owning and having a consolidated view of consumer data and audiences to improve performance and lower costs

• Understanding and spending on the online and offline channels, campaigns, creative, and audiences that actually convert

The 2025 holiday season will be defined by the convergence of five disruptive forces:

Persistent Economic Pressure and Inflation

• As Inflation continues to drive price sensitivity across categories, it is more expensive to bring products to market. Supply chain challenges and global tariffs have shifted the market, and brands need to consider that consumers might be opting for the least expensive option.

Tariffs and Shifting Global Trade

• As US tariffs disrupt the market in unprecedented ways, brands are facing increasing consumer hesitation and price volatility heading into the 2025 holiday season. Fortunately, data from the MikMak Shopping Index shows that Conversion Rates have remained steady in spite of tariffs, meaning consumers are still shopping. Access to First-party data empowers brands to anticipate changes in shopper behavior and proactively adjust pricing in order to avoid margin erosion or lost demand. Therefore, it is a non-negotiable necessity for growth.

AI Disruption in Commerce and Media

• AI is collapsing the traditional funnel. Generative agents are now handling product discovery, recommendation, and in some cases, even making a purchase. To be eligible for these “agentic” journeys, your brand needs to own its data, optimize product discoverability, and ensure availability is surfaced across LLM-scraped environments like search engines, Reddit, and retail sites.

  In fact, the MikMak Shopping Index shows that traffic from ChatGPT to MikMak-powered pages increased 250x between November 2024 and June 2025.
  
  

Consumer Loyalty is Your Brand’s Lifeline

• Consumers aren’t loyal to brands; they’re loyal to value. That value might be emotional (a trusted heritage brand) or transactional (lowest price wins). In a time when brand loyalty is being threatened by pricing and a volatile retail environment, brands must focus on engaging consumers, and keeping their products in carts no matter what.

Consumers Are Social-First, But Expect Seamless Purchase Options

• Brands must “win online to win offline.” Social platforms, influencer-driven discovery, and short-form content drive interest, but the path to purchase must be immediate. If your products aren’t shoppable from the moment of inspiration, your brand is losing market share. Make your products discoverable at every touchpoint using commerce enablement solutions like MikMak.

The holiday season is never one-size-fits-all. While every brand is navigating the same pressures detailed above, the impact looks different across industries. What drives conversion in Alcohol and Grocery won’t be the same as what captures attention in Beauty or influences gifting in Toys and Electronics. That’s why we’ve highlighted key 2025 holiday commerce trends across a range of categories to help you answer this question: