Online inflation in the United States hits a new high, with clothing prices rising by 16.7%

Prices of online goods in the United States have been rising for 21 consecutive months .

Adobe 's digital price index shows that in February , the average price of online goods in the United States rose by 3.6% year-on- year and 0.1% month-on-month. This is the highest record for online prices in the United States since November 2021 , when it rose by 3.5% year-on-year . This also means that online prices in the United States have risen year-on-year for 21 consecutive months .

The Adobe Digital Price Index provides a comprehensive view of how much consumers spend when buying goods online. It analyzes 18 online product categories , 1 trillion retail website visits and more than 100 million SKUs.

In February, 13 of the 18 categories covered by the Adobe Digital Price Index saw year-over-year price increases, with apparel seeing the largest increase, up 16.7%. Adobe noted that the average price in this category has been rising for nearly a year (11 consecutive months) .

The Tools & Home Improvement category saw prices increase 7.8% year-over-year (+0.8% month-over-month), the highest annual gain for the category . The category has experienced year- over-year online price increases for each of the past 15 months . Prior to this , the highest increase in the Tools & Home Improvement category was during the 2021 holiday season : in December 2021 , online prices in the category were up 7.1% year- over- year.

In February , online prices for office supplies rose 1.8% year-on-year (+0.3% month-on-month) , marking the second consecutive month of price increases for office supplies. Last year, online prices in this category fell or remained flat year-on-year for eight consecutive months . This is due to the unpredictable nature of the epidemic, which has caused many consumers to continue working from home, thus pushing up demand and prices for home office products.

Prices for pet products increased 5.6% year-over-year (up 1.3% month-over-month), and have been rising steadily over the past 10 months. As a newer category in e-commerce , demand for pet products has been rising since May 2020 as more consumers bring pets into their homes, leading to price increases.

In February, only five categories of online goods saw a year-on-year decline in average prices : electronics, jewelry, books, toys and computers.

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Inflation

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