Walmart today published its 2026 Holiday Trend Report, a 27-page document that rests mostly on a September 2026 survey of the retailer's own customer research panel, and its clearest finding is that cost sets the tone of the season: 43.8% of respondents named affording the holidays as their top stressor, and 70.2% said lower prices would make holiday shopping easier.

The report, titled "Deck the Aisles," went up on Walmart's corporate newsroom at 5:30 a.m. Central Time. It covers budgets, hosting, the timing of purchases, gift choices, artificial intelligence and buying for oneself. Walmart produced it from its own data. No outside research firm is named, the report does not come from Walmart Connect, the company's advertising business, and no Walmart executive is quoted in it.

In Short

Walmart asked members of its own shopper panel how they plan to handle the 2026 holidays, and the most common answer was that money shapes the whole season. That matters to brands and advertisers selling through Walmart, because the answers put prices, deals, food and gift cards near the top of shoppers' lists. The catch is that Walmart did not say how many people answered, so the figures describe Walmart's panel rather than all American shoppers.

Who produced the data, and how

The final page of the report lists 17 numbered sources. Thirteen of them cite the same thing: "Walmart First-Party Data, Walmart Customer Spark Community powered by Scintilla (September 2026)." The other four come from three internal sources. One, covering home décor, cites "Walmart Home Merchant & Design Insights (September 2026)" and carries no figures. Two cite "Walmart First-Party Data, 'State of the U.S. Consumer,' Q2 FY27," which refers to Walmart's fiscal second quarter, the 13 weeks that ended on July 31, 2026. The last cites "Walmart First-Party Data, FY26, Holiday Gifting Unwrapped (March 2026)," a study of the fiscal year that ended in January 2026 and therefore of the 2025 holiday season.

The Customer Spark Community is a research panel, not a nationally drawn sample. Walmart Data Ventures, the unit that runs Walmart's Scintilla insights platform for suppliers, describes it as a community of verified Walmart shoppers inside Scintilla Customer Perception. A Walmart Data Ventures page on the community puts membership at hundreds of thousands of double-verified Walmart shoppers whose transactions can be tracked to individual product codes. In an October 29, 2025 announcement, Walmart said the community had grown 168% over the previous year and that suppliers use it to run surveys and test products and messaging.

When the report says "shoppers," then, it means members of that panel. The report does not give the number of respondents, the exact field dates within September, the wording of each question, whether results were weighted, or a margin of error. Walmart's newsroom version of the report omits the same details. The "first-party" label is applied to survey answers as well as to internal figures, which is consistent with the usual meaning of first-party data - information a company collects directly from its own customers. Because the underlying data are Walmart's own and unpublished, none of the numbers can be checked independently.

Several charts plainly come from questions where respondents could pick more than one answer. The four hosting responses add up to 148.5%. Others leave gaps. The four shopping windows shown for the timing question add up to 70.4%, so 29.6% of answers are not accounted for, and the three answers on gift satisfaction add up to 96.3%.

The holiday math

Price runs through almost every page. Beyond the 43.8% who named affordability as their top stressor, 60.9% said the cost of gifts and holiday purchases shapes how they feel about the season, a figure the report's graphics round to "6 in 10" and describe as holiday costs shaping their "shopping mood." Some 52.6% pointed to household finances.

Asked what would make holiday shopping easier, 70.2% said lower prices and 57.4% said more deals or promotions. "Holiday shoppers are showing up prepared, with clear priorities and value at the top of the list," the report states.

What the report does not contain is a spending figure. There is no average budget, no share planning to spend more or less overall, and no comparison with what the same panel said in 2025. Other surveys have filled that space. Simon-Kucher's study of 1,501 US consumers, fielded August 6 to 20, put the average household holiday budget at $1,018, down 5.5%, and found that only 22% believe advertised discounts fully reflect true savings, down from 46% in 2025. Last November, Google said 61% of shoppers were more selective with spending because of concerns about the economy.

Caution about budgets has not translated into lower forecasts for online sales. Adobe expects US online holiday spending of $275.1 billion between November 1 and December 31, up 6.7%. The two pictures are not in direct conflict: Adobe measures dollars spent online, including the effect of prices, while Walmart and Simon-Kucher asked people how they feel and what they intend.

Food, hosting and the table

Food is the only category for which the report gives a share planning to spend more. According to Walmart, 33.1% of panel members plan to spend more on food and holiday meals this year. The report does not say what share plan to spend less.

Gatherings are frequent. Some 42.4% expect to host or attend three to four gatherings this season. Asked what would make hosting easier or more enjoyable, 40.7% said keeping it affordable, 40.3% said easy cleanup, 39.4% said sharing through potlucks and 28.1% said ready-to-serve meals. "Hosts aren't after a picture-perfect family gathering," the report says. "Guests bring a dish, costs stay affordable, and disposable plates stay handy."

The home décor page, the only section drawn from merchant observations rather than survey answers, names portable lighting, candles, decorative accessories, throws and pillows as ways to bring warmth into a space "without redoing an entire room." No figures accompany it.

The same day, Walmart used the report's numbers elsewhere. Its Holiday Meal Basket announcement, also dated today, describes a $35 basket of 26 items that Walmart says feeds 10 people, and it cites two of the report's findings: that 6 in 10 customers say holiday costs shape their shopping mood, and that 70% say lower prices would make holiday shopping easier. According to Walmart, the same items cost 12% less than last year, and the basket is available through December 24, 2026.

Early starts, late finishes

The timing data pull in two directions. According to the report, 27.5% of panel members expect to start holiday shopping earlier than last year, with avoiding the last-minute scramble and spreading out spending given as the main reasons, though without percentages. "Most shoppers will stick to their usual timeline," the report acknowledges.

Asked when they expect to do most of their holiday shopping, respondents answered:

  • October through the first half of November: 38.4%
  • Thanksgiving weekend through Cyber Monday: 19.9%
  • December 1 through 15: 10.2%
  • December 16 or later: 1.9%

Thanksgiving falls on November 26 this year, with Black Friday on November 27 and Cyber Monday on November 30. By PPC Land's count, that leaves 29 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, one more than in 2025. Christmas Day falls on a Friday.

Plans and behavior do not line up neatly. Only 1.9% expect to do most of their shopping after December 15, yet Walmart's "State of the U.S. Consumer" data show that last year half of Walmart customers still had not finished shopping with a week to go. The two findings are not contradictory, since one measures where the bulk of spending falls and the other measures when the last purchase is made. The report puts it more loosely: holiday shoppers "plan like pros, right up until the countdown kicks in."

Other parts of the market have moved early as well. Simon-Kucher found 62% were shopping earlier to spread costs, a differently worded question that cannot be compared directly with Walmart's 27.5%. On the advertiser side, a VAB and Tatari survey of 41 brands found 54% planned to be on air before mid-November. Amazon's holiday seller calendar closed Black Friday and Cyber Monday deal submissions on October 20 and applies peak fulfillment fees from October 15, 2026, to January 14, 2027.

Planned lists and impulse buys

According to Walmart's Holiday Gifting Unwrapped study, about two-thirds of Walmart gift purchases in fiscal 2026, the year that included the 2025 holiday season, were planned ahead and about a third were "noted as spontaneous." The report's summary line reads: "Two out of three gift purchases are planned. The rest are pure festive spontaneity." It does not say whether the split was measured from transactions or from what shoppers reported, and the phrasing "noted as" suggests the latter.

Convenience features further down. Some 30.3% said being able to buy across multiple categories in one place would make shopping easier, followed by faster delivery at 20.1%, easy pickup at 11.8% and same-day delivery at 11.1%. That chart is headed "What would make shopping easier?" The 70.2% figure for lower prices appears on a separate page under a slightly different question, "What would make holiday shopping easier?" Both cite the September panel. If they come from the same question, which the report does not confirm, faster delivery registered at less than a third of the level of lower prices.

What goes under the tree

Respondents describe gift choice as more than a matter of price. According to the report, 53.3% said meaning to the recipient is a leading consideration, with budget and good value also on the list, though the report gives no figures for those two. "Price matters, but it's not the whole story," it says.

On whether a requested gift or a surprise is more satisfying, 61.4% said both are equally satisfying, 17.8% preferred the surprise and 17.1% preferred giving something requested.

Gift cards and toys

Gift cards lead the list of gifts at 35.6%, with toys and games at 34.7%. Walmart calls it a "photo finish." Is it a lead at all? The gap is 0.9 percentage points, and without a sample size or margin of error there is no way to tell whether it reflects a real difference in the panel or sampling noise. The report shows only these two categories; it does not list apparel, electronics or other gift types that appear in its self-gift chart.

Where ideas come from

More than half of respondents, 54% according to the report's headline graphic, find gift inspiration through friends and family, which the report calls "the clear number one." No other sources are quantified. There are no figures for search engines, social media, retailer apps, advertising or AI assistants, the channels that marketers and the retailer's own media business compete over.

The AI figures come from a different survey

The report devotes a page to AI under the heading "AI is Becoming Part of the Shopping Journey." Its subhead reads: "Customers see AI as a tool that can reduce effort and support decision-making." According to Walmart, 53% of Walmart customers say AI makes everyday tasks easier and 39% say it helps them make better decisions.

Those two figures are not from the September holiday survey. Footnote 15 attributes them to "State of the U.S. Consumer," Q2 FY27, the quarter that ended on July 31, 2026. They also describe everyday tasks and decisions in general, not holiday shopping. The report says customers use AI to compare products, find the best price and come up with ideas, but attaches no figures to those uses, and it does not mention Sparky, Walmart's own shopping assistant, by name.

The omission stands out given how much Walmart has said elsewhere about Sparky. In August, Walmart reported that the number of customers using Sparky rose 70% year over year and that those customers spend 40% more per order. Its record with outside assistants is more mixed. In March, a Walmart executive said purchases made inside ChatGPT converted three times worse than those that sent shoppers to Walmart's own site. In January, Walmart and Target announced checkout inside Google's Gemini app and AI Mode, built on the Universal Commerce Protocol. Simon-Kucher's survey found 55% of US consumers planned to use AI for holiday shopping, and Adobe expects AI referral traffic to US retail sites to rise 130%, from a base it does not disclose.

Shopping for oneself

The report closes its survey sections with self-gifting. According to Walmart, 32% of panel members say a good deal is what gets them to buy something for themselves. The leading self-gift categories were:

  • Fashion and apparel: 25.2%
  • Food and holiday meals: 24.8%
  • Health, wellness and self-care: 23.1%
  • Experiences and activities: 22.0%
  • Electronics and tech: 17.1%
  • Travel: 16.9%
  • Home décor: 13.9%
  • Beauty: 13.7%

The report does not say whether those percentages are shares of all respondents or only of those who buy for themselves, nor whether the purchases are made at Walmart. Several of the categories, including experiences and activities at 22.0% and travel at 16.9%, are not goods taken off a shelf.

Why the report matters to advertisers

Walmart is a media owner as well as a retailer. Walmart Connect is its retail media network, and in the quarter ended July 31, Walmart Connect's US advertising grew 43%, excluding VIZIO, while Walmart's global advertising grew 38%. Earlier this month, Spotify Ad Exchange inventory became available in Walmart DSP, with outcomes measured through Walmart's closed-loop system that matches ad exposure to purchase records. In January, Walmart Connect said it had tested ad formats inside Sparky.

The trend report is not an advertising document. It mentions neither Walmart Connect nor advertisers. But the panel behind it is a product Walmart sells to suppliers through Scintilla, which Walmart said in August it would extend to Sam's Club next year. In April, Walmart Data Ventures opened Scintilla data to advertisers' agency and technology partners through an API offering about 500 data elements. The report is, in effect, a public sample from a research service that brands pay to use, written by the retailer whose shelves and ad inventory those brands buy. That does not make the numbers wrong. It does mean the publisher, the data owner and the seller of related services are the same company.

The findings that line up with other 2026 surveys are the weight of price and promotions and an earlier start for part of the market, which Simon-Kucher also recorded. The narrower findings, such as the order of gift cards and toys, rest on numbers whose precision the report does not disclose.

What the report leaves out

Beyond sample size and method, several things a reader might expect are missing. There is no breakdown by income, age, region or household type, so it is impossible to tell whether the price pressure is concentrated among lower-income households or spread evenly. There are no year-over-year comparisons from the panel itself, apart from the share expecting to start earlier than last year. And there is no split between online and in-store intentions, despite the report's emphasis on pickup and delivery.

The closing page frames the season in Walmart's terms. "What customers need from retailers is changing," it states. "They want help making a full season of celebrations feel more manageable: inspiration when they are planning, ease when they are hosting and dependable solutions when a last-minute need arises." How far that describes American shoppers in general, rather than the members of one retailer's panel, is a question the report does not answer.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Walmart, which produced the 2026 Holiday Trend Report from its own data, chiefly a survey of its Customer Spark Community, a panel of verified Walmart shoppers run through the Scintilla insights platform that Walmart sells to suppliers.

What: A 27-page report finding that 43.8% of panel members name affording the holidays as their top stressor, 70.2% say lower prices would make holiday shopping easier, 33.1% plan to spend more on food, gift cards lead toys 35.6% to 34.7%, and 32% buy for themselves when they find a deal. AI figures come from a separate, earlier Walmart dataset. No sample size, field dates within September, weighting or margin of error are published.

When: Published today, October 28, 2026. The main survey ran in September 2026; other figures come from Walmart's fiscal second quarter, ended July 31, 2026, and from a March 2026 study of the 2025 holiday season.

Where: The United States, through Walmart's corporate newsroom. The respondents are Walmart customers, not a national sample.

Why: The report gives suppliers and advertisers Walmart's view of its customers before the season starts in earnest, and the same day Walmart used two of its figures to support its $35 Holiday Meal Basket. For marketers, it adds a retailer's own panel data to a season in which other surveys also point to price pressure, early starts and a role for AI tools that remains hard to measure.