Canadian retailers saw meaningful gains over Black Friday 2025, according to new Salesforce data shared with Retail Insider on Saturday. The figures point to a solid start to the holiday season, although analysts caution that the lift came with signs of growing financial strain on consumers.
Online and in-store spending on Black Friday reached an estimated $865 million in Canada, which marked a 6 percent increase compared to last year. The results reflect steady demand, rising discount activity, and the growing role of artificial intelligence in how Canadians shop. Average discounting reached twenty eight percent, slightly higher than the twenty seven percent seen last year, contributing to higher conversion rates across several categories.
Buy Now, Pay Later Surges as Shoppers Seek Flexibility
Caila Schwartz, Director of Consumer Insights at Salesforce, said the topline growth demonstrates a resilient shopper, but one increasingly reliant on flexible payment options. She noted that the share of Buy Now, Pay Later transactions climbed from two point eight percent a year ago to more than five percent this Black Friday.
Schwartz said this was a clear indication that many Canadians are depending on installment plans to manage holiday spending, with retailers leaning into aggressive promotions to capture that demand.
Payment preferences also continue to change in ways that suggest consumers are searching for flexibility. Aside from the sharp rise in Buy Now, Pay Later activity, mobile wallet usage grew to eighteen percent from sixteen percent last year. Both trends came at the expense of traditional credit and debit transactions, which fell from eighty percent of sales last year to seventy five percent this year.
AI-Driven Search Plays a Growing Role in Discovery
Alongside those shifts in payment behaviour, the role of AI has expanded rapidly. Salesforce reported that Black Friday AI-search-referred traffic in Canada increased fivefold compared to last year. The company said one hundred and seventy three million dollars in Canadian online purchases were influenced by AI and digital agents on Friday alone. Schwartz said AI has moved beyond being a helpful enhancement to becoming a key driver of product discovery for both retailers and consumers. She added that conversion rates originating from AI-powered search tools were four times higher than those from social channels, suggesting that shoppers are increasingly using AI to narrow choices and find value more efficiently.
Traffic patterns continue to evolve across platforms. Social media’s share of Black Friday traffic fell slightly to twelve percent from thirteen percent last year. Mobile traffic also dipped to seventy four percent from seventy five percent, although mobile ordering grew to sixty percent from fifty seven percent, which shows that shoppers are still comfortable completing purchases on their phones even if browsing patterns are shifting.
Outlook Heading Into Cyber Monday/Cyber Week in December
While the Canadian consumer remains active heading into December, the data suggests that retailers will need to monitor how shoppers respond to ongoing economic pressures throughout the final weeks of the holiday season. Retail Insider will provide further updates as Cyber Monday and early December numbers become available.
