Inflation makes its way into online stores, says Adobe report

Adobe Digital Insights released a report stating that prices of online goods have risen consecutively for the past 15 months.

Inflation in the prices of goods sold online was up by 3.1% in July compared to July 2020, outpacing the 2.3% year-over-year increase in June.

Adobe Digital Insights’ economy index keeps a track of nearly a trillion visits to e-commerce retail sites and over 100 million products across 18 categories, since 2014.

From 2015 to 2019, online prices on average fell 3.9% annually. Adobe noticed a reversal of the five-year pattern of annual price decreases. Increased online shopping, surging demand, and supply chain shortages have now made online price increases the new normal.

In its July report, Adobe noted that online inflation continued to remain high and showed no signs of slowing down.

The price gains are happening at a time when usually online retailers provide the consumers with discounts to clear the stock at the end of the summer and motivate customers to continue purchasing from their sites.

The report mentioned that consumers have made online transactions worth $541 billion on the internet in the first eight months of 2021. That’s up 9% from a year earlier and up 58% from the same period in 2019, according to Adobe.

Adobe Digital Insights lead analyst Vivek Pandya said, “Categories that once had a minor presence in e-commerce are now becoming staples, with unprecedented pricing trends that no longer hold down overall inflation.”

On Tuesday, the consumer price index, which measures the price average of consumer goods and services, such as transportation, food, and medical care, increased 5.3% from a year earlier and 0.3% from July, the Labor Department reported.

(With inputs from CNBC)

Picture Credits: Freepik