Not Everything Is More Expensive: Online Price Disparities

It may feel like everything is more expensive than it was a year ago, but data from Adobe shows there’s a big difference between the cost of essential goods versus nonessential items compared to last year.

Overall, the Adobe Digital Price Index found online prices fell 0.2% in September, year-over-year. But the Grocery category was up 14.3% in September compared to September of 2021. That was the largest increase of any category.

Prices in the Pet Products category rose 11.85% in September, year-over-year, and Tools & Home Improvement rose 10.51%.

But prices of Computers fell 14.09% and Electronics fell 11.28%. Toy prices were down by 5.28%, and the Sporting Goods category fell by 3.8%, year-over-year.

The Digital Price Index (DPI) is powered by Adobe Analytics and analyzes one trillion visits to retail sites and over 100 million SKUs across 18 product categories.

Eight of the 18 categories in the index saw month-over-month price increases (September 2022 compared to August 2022). Eleven of the 18 categories in the DPI saw year-over-year price increases (September 2022 compared to September 2021).

The full press release including a chart showing the price trends is available on the Adobe website.

Ina Steiner

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.