Every year somebody asks me whether they should wait for Cyber Monday or grab the deal on Black Friday. For most of my life the answer was a shrug. This year there’s a better one, because Adobe published a category-by-category forecast of when online discounts should hit their deepest point, and the answer changes depending on what’s on your list.
The short version: toys, TVs, clothes, appliances, and furniture are forecast to bottom out on Black Friday (November 27). Electronics and computers are expected to be cheapest on Cyber Monday (November 30). Sporting goods are the odd one out, with the best prices expected on Thanksgiving Day itself (November 26).
If you shop your list in the wrong order, you can end up paying a few percentage points more on every item. On a full holiday budget that adds up to real money.
What Adobe expects this year
Adobe Digital Insights tracks online transactions at major U.S. retailers, and its 2026 holiday forecast is big. It projects Americans will spend $275.1 billion online between November 1 and December 31, up 6.7% from last year. Cyber Week alone (Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday) is expected to bring in $47.5 billion.
Cyber Monday should be the single biggest online shopping day of the year at $15.1 billion, followed by Black Friday at $12.9 billion and Thanksgiving at $6.9 billion.
Those totals are mostly interesting to retailers. The part that matters for your wallet is the discount forecast. Adobe expects price cuts of up to 30% off list during Cyber Week, compared with up to 14% in early November, up to 21% just before Thanksgiving, and only 10% to 15% in December. So if you’ve been holding off, good. Most of the year’s best online prices are still ahead of you, and they won’t last long.
The category calendar
Here’s the forecast by category, based on the peak discount Adobe expects and the day it expects it.
| Category | Forecast peak discount | Best day to buy |
|---|---|---|
| Electronics | 30% | Cyber Monday (Nov. 30) |
| Computers | 23% | Cyber Monday (Nov. 30) |
| Toys | 29% | Black Friday (Nov. 27) |
| TVs | 23% | Black Friday (Nov. 27) |
| Apparel | 23% | Black Friday (Nov. 27) |
| Appliances | 18% | Black Friday (Nov. 27) |
| Furniture | 18% | Black Friday (Nov. 27) |
| Sporting goods | 19% | Thanksgiving (Nov. 26) |
A couple of things jump out at me. TVs and computers both peak around 23%, but on different days, so lumping “tech” into one shopping session doesn’t work. Toys peak at 29%, nearly as deep as electronics, which is good news for anyone with kids on the list. And appliances and furniture top out around 18%. That’s a decent discount, but not the kind of number that justifies buying a couch you didn’t already need.
Why the day matters more than the store
People spend hours comparing retailers and almost no time thinking about timing. The forecast suggests timing can matter just as much.
Take a family with $400 earmarked for toys. If they buy in early November at the forecast peak of 14% off, those toys would have listed for about $465. If they wait for Black Friday and catch the 29% peak, $400 covers toys that list for roughly $563. Same budget, about $98 more in stuff (or, the way I’d rather look at it, the same gifts for about $70 less).
Now the honest caveat. These are forecast peaks, “up to” numbers averaged across lots of products and retailers. Your exact item might be discounted less, or not at all. The forecast tells you which day the odds are best. It doesn’t promise a specific price. Before you hit buy, check the item’s price history on a tracking site or browser extension so you know the “sale” is really a sale and not a marked-up list price with a red tag on it.
Build the plan before the deals start
The shoppers who come out ahead during Cyber Week are usually the ones who did the boring work the week before. I’d do it in this order.
Start by writing your list with a dollar cap next to each person. Then sort that list by category and assign each item to a day using the table above. Sporting goods go on Thursday. Toys, TVs, clothes, and household stuff go on Friday. Laptops, headphones, tablets, and gaming gear go on Monday. Anything left over that doesn’t fit a peak category can wait, since December discounts are forecast to be thin anyway, but at least you’ll be buying it on purpose.
Next, figure out where the money is coming from. If you’ve been putting money aside in a holiday sinking fund or a separate savings account, now is when that habit pays off. Leave the cash in savings, where it’s still earning interest, and move only what you need into checking the morning of each shopping day. It’s a small speed bump, but it keeps a Friday spree from quietly eating into Monday’s budget.
If you’re shopping with a debit card, keep an eye on your available balance. Some online orders and pre-authorizations can sit as pending for a few days, and three days of shopping in a row is exactly when those holds pile up.
The buy now, pay later trap
Adobe expects shoppers to put $21.3 billion of holiday purchases on buy now, pay later plans this season, with more than $1 billion of that on Cyber Monday alone. About 82% of that BNPL spending is forecast to happen on phones, where checking out takes a single tap.
Splitting a purchase into four payments isn’t automatically bad. But a 23% discount stops being a deal if it nudges you into buying something you couldn’t afford in cash. When I’m tempted, I ask myself whether I’d still buy it if I had to pay for the whole thing from my checking account today. If the answer is no, the discount doesn’t matter. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has a plain explainer on how these loans work if you haven’t used one before.
When to ignore the calendar entirely
Some purchases shouldn’t wait for a peak. If a specific item has limited stock (the toy every kid wants this year, a particular gaming console), the risk of it selling out can outweigh a few extra percent off. Groceries and perishables obviously aren’t part of this. And if you were never going to buy a new TV, Black Friday’s 23% isn’t a reason to start.
The forecast is most useful for the stuff you were going to buy anyway. That’s where waiting three days, or buying three days earlier, puts money back in your pocket without changing what you give anybody.
A simple three-day game plan
So here’s how I’d run it. On Thanksgiving, buy sporting goods and fitness gifts, then close the laptop and eat. On Black Friday, knock out toys, TVs, clothing, and anything for the house. On Cyber Monday, buy the computers and electronics. Each morning, move that day’s budget from savings to checking, and when the money’s gone, you’re done for the day.
Whatever you don’t spend stays in savings and keeps earning. If you manage to finish your list under budget, I’d leave the leftover there and let it become the start of next year’s holiday fund.
