Ecommerce Inflation Eased In June, But Grocery Prices Jumped 12%

While overall ecommerce inflation slowed significantly in June, online grocery prices continued to show record increases, according to the latest Adobe ADBE Digital Price Index report.

The report also showed that overall online spending by U.S. consumers declined in June compared to April and May.

Consumers spent $74.1 billion in June, compared to $78.8 billion in May and $77.8 billion in April. On a year-over-year comparison June sales were up 1% over June 2021.

Spending for the year, through June, is up 7.5% compared to the same perioud in 2021, at $451.7 billion.

The Digital Price Index showed online prices were up 0.3% year over year in June, a sizable slowdown from the inflationary pace of the previous June, when prices were up 2.3% year-0ver-year. On a monthly basis, online prices this June were down 1%.

Online prices have increased for 25 consecutive months, according to the Adobe index, but June was the third consecutive month in which the inflationary pace slowed.

Online prices were up 3.6% year-over-year in March, 2.9% in April, and 2% in May.

Grocery, however, has been the primary ecommerce category where prices have continued to soar. Grocery prices once again rose by a record amount in June, up 12.4% year-over-year. That spike follows previous record-breaking year-over-year increases of 7.6% in February, 9% in March, 10.3% in April and 11.3% in May.

Pet products and tools and home improvement also saw significant price increases. Pet products were up 11.3% year-over-year and tools and home improvement were up 10.4% year-over-year.

Two of the largest ecommerce categories, electronics and apparel, had price decreses. Electronics were down 7.28% year-over year. Apparel was down just 0.1% year-over-year, but that was a sharp reversal from May, when apparel prices rose 9% year-over-year.

The Digital Price Index uses Adobe Analytics data culled from one trillion visits to ecommerce sites, covering over 100 million SKUs across 18 product categories.

The news from Adobe that Americans spent $4.7 billion less in June than in May comes as Amazon AMZN kicks off its first day of the two-day Prime Day sales event. Concerns about inflation and the economy are expected to impact Prime Day sales this year, but a number of surveys found a majority of consumers planned to make Prime Day purchases.

A survey by Adobe Commerce, conducted in June, found that 61% of consumers were looking forward to Prime Day sales, with 76% of those planning to participate saying they would spend the same or more as last year.

A survey by retail discounts and coupon site RetailMeNot found that 88% of shoppers planned to make Prime Day purchases this year, with 47% of shoppers saying they wait until Prime Day to make their biggest purchases of the year.