In October, price growth for consumer durables and personal goods decelerated for the first time in three months, with a month-over-month increase of +0.22% compared to a revised monthly +0.48% increase in September. Deceleration of price growth was observed across all of our price groups except communication devices, with prices of both appliances and personal goods seeing nominal price deflation in October. Amongst appliances, decreases were observed across most categories of products.

Amongst products in the appliance and personal care groups, we find a number of categories have been on a downward price growth trajectory over the past several months. For example, prices of hair dryers jumped 1.15% month-over-month in August, but slowed to 0.82% in September and fell by -1.27% in October. Similarly, laundry – including washers and dryers – grew by +0.90% in August, but fell by 0.48% in September and 0.86% in October. See chart below for select examples of other appliances and personal care products that experienced price declines last month.

• Key CPI Takeaways for October 2025 & Macroeconomic Outlook
• Product Group Highlights
  • Appliances
  • Communication
  • Home Improvement
  • Personal Care
  • Recreation
• CPI 2025 Forecast: Macroeconomic Summary
• Methodology

Overall OpenBrand Consumer Price Index Movement: The OpenBrand CPI of Durable and Personal Goods recorded a +0.22% monthly change in October, notching the eleventh consecutive month-over-month increase and 16th of the last 17th. The month-over-month slowdown in the pace of price growth was only the third slowdown of the calendar year.

Discount Trends: October brought mixed changes in discount activity to the durables and personal goods sector, with frequencies falling month-over-month to 24.6% of all durable and personal goods from 25.5% in the month prior.  The typical magnitude increased slightly to 20.4%, almost matching the highest recording since July 2024, and up from 20.0% the month prior. 

Product Group Price Trends: All product groups except the communications group experienced a slowdown in the rate of growth from the month prior, with prices of both appliances and personal care products actually declining month-over-month. The group summary is as follows:

• Appliance Group (-0.20%)
• Communication Group (+0.65%)
• Home Improvement Group (+0.49%)
• Personal Care Group (-0.33%)
• Recreation Group (+0.49%)

See the full breakdown of product groupings. 

CPI: Appliances

Prices for appliances decreased on a month-over-month basis in October to -0.20%, falling from a revised +0.01% in the month prior. The negative price growth was at least partially driven by the typical discount magnitude increasing slightly to 17.0% from 16.8%, while the frequency of discounts remained relatively unchanged (decreasing only slightly to 42.8% from 42.9% the month prior).

CPI: Communication

Prices of communication devices, including phones, tablets, computers, and printers, rose on a month-over-month basis to +0.65%, up sharply again from a revised +0.24% the month prior. The frequency and magnitude of discounts were mixed in October, moving from 16.8% to 14.1% and 20.0% to 20.2% from September to October, respectively. The sharp rise in prices of communication devices most likely was led by the significant decline in frequency of discounts, which fell again this month by almost 3 percentage points compared to the month prior.

CPI: Home Improvement

Prices for home improvement goods increased by +0.49% on a month-over-month basis in October, slowing from a revised +0.73% in the month prior, showing 31 consecutive month-over-month flat or monthly increases. The deceleration in price growth was at least partially driven by an increase in the frequency of discounts (13.9% from 13.4% the month prior), while the typical discount magnitude remained relatively flat, growing only slightly to 18.3% from 18.1%.

CPI: Personal Care

Prices of personal care products fell on a monthly basis in October 2025 by -0.33%. Some of this decrease may be due to a mild increase in the frequency and magnitude of price discounts, with the frequency of discounts remaining relatively flat, increasing only slightly from 24.1% in September to 24.3% in October, and the average discount magnitude growing from 20.7% to 21.6% over the same period.

CPI: Recreation

The rate of price growth of recreational products, including TVs, headphones, and speaker systems, decreased to +0.49% on a month-over-month basis in October, down sharply from a revised +0.79% in September. Some of this decrease in the pace of price growth is at least partially due to a decrease in the frequency of discounts – to 28.1% in October from 30.1% in September – but a slight increase in the average magnitude of discounts – to 24.7% from 24.4% over the same time period.

Entering November 2025, the U.S. economy finds itself navigating a fragile transition: growth remains positive, but with mounting headwinds — and among the most salient of those is the protracted federal government shutdown that began on October 1. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the shutdown could reduce real GDP growth in the fourth quarter by 1.0 to 2.0 percentage points, and an estimated $7 billion to $14 billion of output may be permanently lost depending on duration. 

The economic effects are being felt in several ways. First, with roughly 750,000 federal workers furloughed or working without pay, households directly tied to the public sector are already tightening spending. This has immediate implications for consumption — especially in parts of the economy that rely on federal payrolls, travel and lodging near Washington, D.C., and contract staffing on federal projects.

Second, the shutdown is delaying and disrupting government-provided services and payments, including food assistance (SNAP) benefits, permit and regulatory approvals, and contract payments to businesses. These disruptions dampen business investment and consumer confidence, adding another negative drag. 

On the inflation front, the shutdown creates a mixed picture. On one hand, the decline in federal employee pay and some delayed spending could exert mild downward pressure on aggregate demand and thus ease some inflationary pressure. On the other hand, disruptions to services, regulatory bottlenecks, and uncertainty may raise input costs and risk premium for firms, which could be passed on to consumers. Therefore, while headline inflation may remain fairly stable in the near term, underlying volatility and sectoral divergences are increasing.

The labor market remains relatively resilient — unemployment remains low by historical standards, and wage growth, though moderating, continues to run above pre-pandemic levels. But there are signs of emerging fragility: companies are issuing layoff notices, some sectors dependent on federal contracting are pausing hiring, and households with interrupted pay are delaying purchases. These factors suggest that while the labor market is not collapsing, its capacity to cushion the economy is weakening.

Monetary policy is likely to remain cautious and vigilant. The Federal Reserve will have to weigh the dual mandate of supporting the economy and labor market against the risk of inflation re-accelerating. The shutdown complicates the data picture, with statistical releases being delayed or impaired, which makes real-time assessment and policy calibration more difficult. 

Looking ahead, the key scenarios for November and beyond are clear: if the shutdown is resolved promptly — say within the first half of November — the economic drag may be limited, enabling a relatively normal holiday spending season and moderate growth into 2026. But if the impasse drags on into December, the risks of weaker consumption, delayed investment, worsening confidence, and a slower reopening rebound become much more pronounced.

In summary, for November 2025 the U.S. economy is balancing on a see saw. The federal government shutdown is a significant wildcard: it is dragging on growth, creating uncertainty, and complicating policy. While the fundamentals (consumer spending, employment) remain reasonably solid, the shutdown adds a non-trivial risk of a soft patch, or worse, if not resolved soon. Inflation may not spike, but the underlying resilience of households and businesses is being tested — and in this environment, the margin of safety is narrowing.

Note: This summary is based on data available as of early November 2025 and may be subject to revisions in future releases.

For questions about the report, please contact Ralph McLaughlin at ralph@openbrand.com 

For press inquiries, please contact press@openbrand.com 

The OpenBrand CPI of Durable and Personal Goods is constructed using a data-driven methodology that ensures accuracy, timeliness, and transparency in measuring price trends for both short and long-lasting consumer products. The methodology consists of the following key components:

1. Data Collection

• Real-Time Price Tracking: Prices are sourced daily from online marketplaces, retail websites, and brick-and-mortar store listings.
• Retailer & Manufacturer Data: Aggregates pricing information from major retailers, direct-to-consumer brands, and wholesale suppliers into broader consumer categories.
• Temporal Coverage: Captures price variations over time, including daily discounts and price promotions

2. Product Selection & Tracking

• Durable and Personal Goods Focus: The index includes products with an expected lifespan of three years or more, such as home appliances, consumer electronics, and tools, as well as personal care products with a shorter lifespan, such as hair and skin care products, vitamins, over-the-counter medications, and oral care products. 
• Brand & Model Tracking: Individual brands and models are monitored to reflect pricing shifts within competitive product segments, including both permanent changes in listing price as well as temporary promotional pricing. 

3. Price Calculation, Adjustments, and Weighting

• Price Calculation: Tracks month-over-month and year-over-year price movements to measure price stability in the marketplace and take into account both longer-term changes in pricing (such as changes in manufacturer’s suggested retail price) as well as more short-term changes in pricing, such as promotional discounts and sales prices. 
• SKU-Removal Instead of Hedonic Adjustments: When a product (or SKU) becomes unavailable in the BLS goods basket, the BLS implements a SKU-replacement procedure whereby the next most similar product is used in its place, and a quality (hedonic) adjustment procedure is performed to get closer to an apples-to-apples price comparison. Since OpenBrand has data on nearly 100% of the SKUs pricing history in a given product category, we can simply remove that SKU from the basket and rely on price changes of the remaining SKUs in that basket. This eliminates the need for hedonic adjustment in the OpenBrand CPI basket.
• Weighting and Aggregation Method: A weighted geometric mean formula is used to minimize volatility and improve stability in price trend analysis at both the product grouping and category level. Instead of using sales-volume weights when aggregating the index, we take an alternative approach by using persistence-based weights for aggregation. Instead of more frequently purchased items getting more weight in the BLS’ CPI calculation, OpenBrand takes a more novel approach by weighting items with a more established price history in the market more heavily in our CPI calculation than items with a less established history.

4. Reporting & Updates

• High-Frequency Updates: Published freely on a monthly basis, with a subscription option for daily summaries across categories, sub-categories, and individual products.
• Comparative Benchmarks: We aggregate pricing as analogously as possible to traditional BLS CPI measures for benchmarking purposes.
• Transparency & Accessibility: Provides both open and paid data access for journalists, researchers, businesses, and policymakers.

By leveraging real-time data and advanced statistical techniques, the OpenBrand CPI offers an accurate and dynamic measure of pricing trends, helping businesses and consumers make informed decisions in an evolving economic landscape.

Price growth for consumer durables and personal goods accelerated for a second consecutive month in September, with a month-over-month increase of +0.58% compared to a revised monthly +0.45% increase in August. The acceleration of price growth was observed across three of our price groupings – Communication, Personal Care, and Recreational goods. Both Appliances and Home Improvement goods – which are comprised of products that were likely to be exempt from the now-eliminated duty-free de minimis treatment – saw price deceleration in September, a possible sign that the impacts of tariffs on these product groups may be starting to wane. In particular, prices of appliances showed no growth in September and were down from just under 0.5% growth between July and August.

What’s more, we find that products in the personal care product group dominated the top 10 list of categories with the largest month-over-month price growth. Of the 10 categories with the largest swings from negative to positive growth over the past two months, nine of the top 10 are in the personal care group and one in the recreation group, with categories such as breath fresheners, first aid treatments, deodorants media players, and shaving cream shifting from negative month-over-month growth in July, to between 1-3% in September.

• Key CPI Takeaways for August 2025 & Macroeconomic Outlook
• Product Group Highlights
  • Appliances
  • Communication
  • Home Improvement
  • Personal Care
  • Recreation
• CPI 2025 Forecast: Macroeconomic Summary
• Methodology

Overall OpenBrand Consumer Price Index Movement: The OpenBrand CPI of Durable and Personal Goods recorded a +0.58% monthly change in September, notching the tenth consecutive month-over-month increase and 15th of the last 16th. The increase in prices built on gains from the prior month, with an increase in discount magnitude being overshadowed by a much larger decrease in frequency of discounts.

Discount Trends: September brought mixed changes in discount activity to the durables and personal goods sector, with frequencies falling month-over-month to 23.1% of all durable and personal goods from 24.4% in the month prior.  The typical magnitude increased to 20.6%, matching the highest recording in 2025 back in March, from 19.7% the month prior. With the falling frequency of discounts overshadowing an increase in discount magnitude, aggregate prices had strong growth this month compared to the month prior.

Product Group Price Trends: Four product groups – Communications, Home Improvement, Personal Care, and Recreation – all experienced increases in the rate of price growth from the prior month, while the Appliance group experienced a flat month. The group summary is as follows:

• Appliance Group (+0.0%)
• Communication Group (+0.76%)
• Home Improvement Group (+0.69%)
• Personal Care Group (+0.76%)
• Recreation Group (+0.68%)

See the full breakdown of product groupings. 

CPI: Appliances

Prices for appliances were flat on a month-over-month basis in September, falling from +0.48% in the month prior. The flat price growth was at least partially driven by the typical discount magnitude remaining flat at 16.9%, while the frequency of discounts decreased (44.0% from 45.0% the month prior).

CPI: Communication

Prices of communication devices, including phones, tablets, computers, and printers, rose on a month-over-month basis to +0.76%, up  sharply from a revised +0.38% the month prior. The frequency and magnitude of discounts were mixed in September, moving from 12.1% to 7.9% and 20.6% to 23.2% from August to September, respectively.  The sharp rise in prices of communication devices most likely was lead by the significant decline in frequency of discounts, which fell by about 4 percentage points compared to last month.

CPI: Home Improvement

The rate of increase for the price index of home improvement goods  decreased slightly on a month-over-month basis, falling to +0.69% (down from +0.74% the month prior), showing 30 consecutive month-over-month flat or monthly increases. The increase in prices comes amidst a slight increase in the frequency (rising to 12.2% from 11.9%) of discounts, while the magnitude remained relatively flat, growing to 18.3% from 18.2%.

CPI: Personal Care

Prices of personal care products increased sharply on a monthly basis in September by +0.76%, up from a revised +0.47% in August. This increase comes amidst mixed responses in both the frequency and magnitude of discounts, with the frequency falling to 22.4% from 25.3%. This decrease in frequency of discounts could be the key to the rise in prices of personal care products. The rise in the frequency of discounts was enough to counteract the magnitude increase from to 21.5% from 20.5% between August and September. 

CPI: Recreation

The rate of price growth of recreational products, including TVs, headphones, and speaker systems, increased sharply to +0.68% on a month-over-month basis in September, up from a revised +0.20% in August. Counterintuitively, the frequency of discounts increased to 28.8% in September from 27.5% in August and the average magnitude of discounts increased to 22.9% from 22.4% over the same time period. In order for price growth to rise with discounts increasing in both frequency and magnitude, it’s likely the case that sellers disguised price increases by increase apparent discounts by raising the list price more than the shelf price, leading to an apparent increase in discount magnitudes at the same time prices paid by the consumer also rise.

As of October 2025, the U.S. economy is at a critical juncture, transitioning from a period of stubborn inflationary pressure toward a more stable, though slower, growth environment. The pace of economic expansion has moderated, but the economy has avoided a sharp contraction, reflecting the resilience of consumers and businesses despite higher borrowing costs.

Inflation has cooled markedly from its post-pandemic highs, with headline price growth settling in the mid-3% range year-over-year. Yet the path toward the Federal Reserve’s 2% target remains uncertain. Goods inflation, which was once a source of disinflationary momentum, has turned slightly positive again as trade realignments, energy costs, and domestic sourcing requirements push input prices higher. Durable goods categories such as appliances, electronics, and autos have seen renewed price growth, in part reflecting steady consumer demand and supply-side frictions.

The most persistent price pressures remain in the services sector. Housing costs are the clearest example: mortgage rates remain elevated, keeping many homeowners locked in and limiting supply, while household formation continues to sustain strong rental demand. As a result, shelter inflation remains above overall price growth, constraining household budgets and prolonging the disinflation process. Other services, including health care and insurance, are also contributing to upward pressure.

The labor market, while cooling, continues to support the broader economy. Unemployment has edged up to just over 4%, but this remains historically low. Wage growth has slowed from its peaks but is still running faster than the pre-pandemic average, helping households maintain spending power. This dynamic has been crucial in preventing a sharper slowdown, though it has also made the “last mile” of disinflation more challenging.

Monetary policy remains firmly in restrictive territory, but is loosening. The Federal Reserve has kept rates elevated through the summer and fall, emphasizing that while progress has been made on inflation, it is not yet confident that price stability has been restored. The Federal Reserve did lower rates by 25 basis points last month, and markets are increasingly looking to the end of 2025 for continued signs of loosening with expectations of two more rate cuts by the end of the year. However, the Fed is signaling caution, wary of undoing gains too quickly.

Externally, the U.S. is contending with mixed global conditions. Sluggish growth in Europe and a fragile recovery in China have weighed on export demand, while geopolitical risks continue to threaten energy and food markets. At the same time, federal investment programs—particularly in infrastructure, clean energy, and domestic manufacturing—are providing support to key sectors and creating regional pockets of strength.

Taken together, the outlook for October 2025 points to an economy that is slowing but stable, with inflation gradually easing yet still above target. The balance of risks lies in how long consumer resilience can hold against elevated borrowing costs and whether service-sector inflation can cool without requiring a more pronounced economic slowdown. The coming quarters will be pivotal in determining whether the U.S. achieves a soft landing or faces a more drawn-out adjustment toward price stability and sustainable growth.

Note: This summary is based on data available as of early October 2025 and may be subject to revisions in future releases.

For questions about the report, please contact Ralph McLaughlin at ralph@openbrand.com 

For press inquiries, please contact press@openbrand.com 

The OpenBrand CPI of Durable and Personal Goods is constructed using a data-driven methodology that ensures accuracy, timeliness, and transparency in measuring price trends for both short and long-lasting consumer products. The methodology consists of the following key components:

1. Data Collection

• Real-Time Price Tracking: Prices are sourced daily from online marketplaces, retail websites, and brick-and-mortar store listings.
• Retailer & Manufacturer Data: Aggregates pricing information from major retailers, direct-to-consumer brands, and wholesale suppliers into broader consumer categories.
• Temporal Coverage: Captures price variations over time, including daily discounts and price promotions

2. Product Selection & Tracking

• Durable and Personal Goods Focus: The index includes products with an expected lifespan of three years or more, such as home appliances, consumer electronics, and tools, as well as personal care products with a shorter lifespan, such as hair and skin care products, vitamins, over-the-counter medications, and oral care products. 
• Brand & Model Tracking: Individual brands and models are monitored to reflect pricing shifts within competitive product segments, including both permanent changes in listing price as well as temporary promotional pricing. 

3. Price Calculation, Adjustments, and Weighting

• Price Calculation: Tracks month-over-month and year-over-year price movements to measure price stability in the marketplace and take into account both longer-term changes in pricing (such as changes in manufacturer’s suggested retail price) as well as more short-term changes in pricing, such as promotional discounts and sales prices. 
• SKU-Removal Instead of Hedonic Adjustments: When a product (or SKU) becomes unavailable in the BLS goods basket, the BLS implements a SKU-replacement procedure whereby the next most similar product is used in its place, and a quality (hedonic) adjustment procedure is performed to get closer to an apples-to-apples price comparison. Since OpenBrand has data on nearly 100% of the SKUs pricing history in a given product category, we can simply remove that SKU from the basket and rely on price changes of the remaining SKUs in that basket. This eliminates the need for hedonic adjustment in the OpenBrand CPI basket.
• Weighting and Aggregation Method: A weighted geometric mean formula is used to minimize volatility and improve stability in price trend analysis at both the product grouping and category level. Instead of using sales-volume weights when aggregating the index, we take an alternative approach by using persistence-based weights for aggregation. Instead of more frequently purchased items getting more weight in the BLS’ CPI calculation, OpenBrand takes a more novel approach by weighting items with a more established price history in the market more heavily in our CPI calculation than items with a less established history.

4. Reporting & Updates

• High-Frequency Updates: Published freely on a monthly basis, with a subscription option for daily summaries across categories, sub-categories, and individual products.
• Comparative Benchmarks: We aggregate pricing as analogously as possible to traditional BLS CPI measures for benchmarking purposes.
• Transparency & Accessibility: Provides both open and paid data access for journalists, researchers, businesses, and policymakers.

By leveraging real-time data and advanced statistical techniques, the OpenBrand CPI offers an accurate and dynamic measure of pricing trends, helping businesses and consumers make informed decisions in an evolving economic landscape.

Price growth for consumer durables and personal goods reaccelerated on a monthly basis in August, with a month-over-month increase of +0.43% compared to a revised monthly +0.24% increase in July. The reacceleration of price growth was observed across all of our price groupings except recreational goods, and is a rebound from a very active month of discounts in July due to Amazon’s Prime Week. What’s more, the reacceleration in August comes amid a slate of new tariffs as well as elimination of the duty-free de minimis treatment, allowing the U.S. Customs and Border Protection to collect tariffs on packaged goods that are below the previous exclusionary threshold of $800.

What’s more, we find that a variety of products in the appliances, communication, home improvement, and personal care sectors were responsible for the price acceleration. Large monthly increases were observed among select desktop computers, dishwashers, outdoor cooking, power tools/accessories, shampoo/conditioner, shaving razors, vacuums, and wearable electronics, with several of these products swinging from negative to positive month-over-month growth between July and August.

• Key CPI Takeaways for August 2025 & Macroeconomic Outlook
• Product Group Highlights
  • Appliances
  • Communication
  • Home Improvement
  • Personal Care
  • Recreation
• CPI 2025 Forecast: Macroeconomic Summary
• Methodology

Overall OpenBrand Consumer Price Index Movement: The OpenBrand CPI of Durable and Personal Goods recorded a +0.43% monthly change in August, notching the ninth consecutive month-over-month increase and 14th of the last 15th. The increase was also a reacceleration from July’s revised figure of +0.24%, when Amazon – and other retailers – ramped up discounting activity during Prime Week. A recap of those discounting trends can be found in last month’s report.

Discount Trends: August brought relatively small changes in discount activity to the durables and personal goods sector, with frequencies rising month-over-month by just 100 basis points to 25.2% of all durable and personal goods from 24.7% in the month prior. This was the highest reading since December 202.. Despite the uptick in discount frequency in August, the typical magnitude decreased to 19.9% from 20.4% the month prior. Given that prices accelerated in the aggregate, this suggests that retailers may be hiding net price increases by increasing the apparent discount rate to consumers. 

Product Group Price Trends: Four product groups – Appliances, Communications, Home Improvement, and Personal Care – all experienced increases in the rate of price growth from the prior month, while the Recreation group also experienced an increase but at a slower rate than the month prior. The group summary is as follows:

• Appliance Group (+0.48%)
• Communication Group (+0.39%)
• Home Improvement Group (+0.68%)
• Personal Care Group (+0.37%)
• Recreation Group (+0.23%)

See the full breakdown of product groupings. 

CPI: Appliances

Prices for appliances increased by +0.48% on a month-over-month basis in August, rising from a revised increase of +0.26% in the month prior. The acceleration in price growth was at least partially driven by a decrease in the frequency of discounts (45.1% from 46.0% the month prior), while the typical discount magnitude decreased to 16.9% from 17.3% the month prior.

CPI: Communication

rices of communication devices, including phones, tablets, computers, and printers, rose on a month-over-month basis to +0.39%, up sharply from a revised +0.15% the month prior. The frequency and magnitude of discounts was essentially unchanged in August, moving from 12.1% to 12.0% and 20.6% to 20.5% from July to August, respectively.

CPI: Home Improvement

The rate of increase for the price index of home improvement goods increased slightly on a month-over-month basis, growing to +0.68% (up from +0.60% the month prior), showing 28 consecutive month-over-month flat or monthly increases. The increase in prices comes amidst a slight increase in the frequency (rising to 16.3% from 15.1%) of discounts, while the magnitude remained unchanged at 18.8%.

CPI: Personal Care

Prices of personal care products increased sharply on a monthly basis in August by +0.37%, up from -0.21% in July. This increase comes amidst decreases in both the frequency and magnitude of discounts, with the frequency falling to 25.5% from 26.0% and the magnitude falling to 21.6% from 20.6% between July and August.

CPI: Recreation

The rate of price growth of recreational products, including TVs, headphones, and speaker systems, decreased to +0.23% on a month-over-month basis in August, down from a revised +0.41% in July. Some of this decrease in the pace of price growth is at least partially due to a sharp increase in the frequency of discounts – to 27.2% in August from 24.2% in July – but a slight decrease in the average magnitude of discounts – to 22.5% from 23.8% over the same time period.

As of September 2025, the U.S. economy is navigating a careful transition from an inflation-driven tightening cycle toward a period of slower, more balanced growth. After two years of aggressive monetary policy and supply-side adjustments, inflation has eased significantly from its peak but remains above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. Headline inflation is hovering in the low-3% range, while core inflation continues to show stickiness, particularly in services, signaling that the final stretch of disinflation will be the most difficult.

The labor market, though cooling from the ultra-tight conditions of 2022 and 2023, remains historically strong. Unemployment is holding near 4.2%, and wage growth, while moderating, is still above the pre-pandemic trend. These labor dynamics have kept consumer spending steady, particularly in services, even as borrowing costs weigh on big-ticket purchases. This resilience is contributing to the “last mile” problem for inflation, with services and housing costs continuing to grow faster than goods prices.

Housing markets remain a point of stress. While mortgage rates have inched down from their highs, affordability challenges persist due to elevated home prices and limited inventory. Rent inflation, though slowing slightly, remains firm in many metro areas. Insurance costs—driven by climate-related risks and regulatory shifts—are adding an additional layer of price pressure for homeowners and businesses alike.

Energy markets are stable for now but remain a potential wildcard. Increased renewable generation and domestic energy investment have helped stabilize fuel prices, but geopolitical tensions and climate-driven supply disruptions keep the sector vulnerable to volatility. Food prices have improved compared to last year, but weather shocks and global supply disruptions still pose risks heading into the winter months.

Monetary policy is at an inflection point. The Federal Reserve has maintained its restrictive stance through the summer but has begun signaling openness to a gradual easing cycle, possibly starting late this year or early next year, contingent on continued progress toward its inflation target. Financial markets expect one or two modest rate cuts before year-end, though Fed officials remain cautious about declaring victory too early.

In sum, the macroeconomic outlook as of September 2025 is one of gradual stabilization, but not without risks. Inflation is trending downward but at a slower pace, growth is moderating without collapsing, and policy is poised to shift from restraint to cautious support. The biggest challenges ahead lie in navigating this delicate balance—ensuring that disinflation continues without triggering a downturn, while managing structural shifts in labor, energy, and global trade that will define the next phase of the economy.

Note: This summary is based on data available as of early September 2025 and may be subject to revisions in future releases. With the September 2025 release, we have added additional categories (noted below) and increased the frequency of price observations on several existing categories. Given these changes, we present a comparison of the legacy categories (old) and sample size with the expanded categories and sample size (new). Since the impact is small, in this, and future reports, we use the expanded categories and sample size in calculation of the OpenBrand CPI-DPG and CPI groups.

For questions about the report, please contact Ralph McLaughlin at ralph@openbrand.com 

For press inquiries, please contact press@openbrand.com 

The OpenBrand CPI of Durable and Personal Goods is constructed using a data-driven methodology that ensures accuracy, timeliness, and transparency in measuring price trends for both short and long-lasting consumer products. The methodology consists of the following key components:

1. Data Collection

• Real-Time Price Tracking: Prices are sourced daily from online marketplaces, retail websites, and brick-and-mortar store listings.
• Retailer & Manufacturer Data: Aggregates pricing information from major retailers, direct-to-consumer brands, and wholesale suppliers into broader consumer categories.
• Temporal Coverage: Captures price variations over time, including daily discounts and price promotions

2. Product Selection & Tracking

• Durable and Personal Goods Focus: The index includes products with an expected lifespan of three years or more, such as home appliances, consumer electronics, and tools, as well as personal care products with a shorter lifespan, such as hair and skin care products, vitamins, over-the-counter medications, and oral care products. 
• Brand & Model Tracking: Individual brands and models are monitored to reflect pricing shifts within competitive product segments, including both permanent changes in listing price as well as temporary promotional pricing. 

3. Price Calculation, Adjustments, and Weighting

• Price Calculation: Tracks month-over-month and year-over-year price movements to measure price stability in the marketplace and take into account both longer-term changes in pricing (such as changes in manufacturer’s suggested retail price) as well as more short-term changes in pricing, such as promotional discounts and sales prices. 
• SKU-Removal Instead of Hedonic Adjustments: When a product (or SKU) becomes unavailable in the BLS goods basket, the BLS implements a SKU-replacement procedure whereby the next most similar product is used in its place, and a quality (hedonic) adjustment procedure is performed to get closer to an apples-to-apples price comparison. Since OpenBrand has data on nearly 100% of the SKUs pricing history in a given product category, we can simply remove that SKU from the basket and rely on price changes of the remaining SKUs in that basket. This eliminates the need for hedonic adjustment in the OpenBrand CPI basket.
• Weighting and Aggregation Method: A weighted geometric mean formula is used to minimize volatility and improve stability in price trend analysis at both the product grouping and category level. Instead of using sales-volume weights when aggregating the index, we take an alternative approach by using persistence-based weights for aggregation. Instead of more frequently purchased items getting more weight in the BLS’ CPI calculation, OpenBrand takes a more novel approach by weighting items with a more established price history in the market more heavily in our CPI calculation than items with a less established history.

4. Reporting & Updates

• High-Frequency Updates: Published freely on a monthly basis, with a subscription option for daily summaries across categories, sub-categories, and individual products.
• Comparative Benchmarks: We aggregate pricing as analogously as possible to traditional BLS CPI measures for benchmarking purposes.
• Transparency & Accessibility: Provides both open and paid data access for journalists, researchers, businesses, and policymakers.

By leveraging real-time data and advanced statistical techniques, the OpenBrand CPI offers an accurate and dynamic measure of pricing trends, helping businesses and consumers make informed decisions in an evolving economic landscape.

Price growth for consumer durables and personal goods decelerated sharply on a monthly basis in July, with a month-over-month increase of +0.17% compared to a revised monthly +0.75% increase in June. The deceleration of price growth was primarily driven by slower price growth of appliances, communication, personal care, and recreation products, as well as a nearly 200 basis point increase in discount activity from 21.2% in July to 23.1% in July.

Some of the price growth deceleration in July was likely due to an increase in discounting activity, driven in part by Amazon’s Prime Week and the announcement of similar promotional events by BestBuy.com, Target.com, and Walmart.com. While Amazon is the host of Prime Week, it turns out that Walmart.com actually stole the show this year in terms of both discount frequency compared to its competitors as well as differential between itself during the rest of the month. Nearly 60% of all products on Walmart.com were discounted during Prime Week, leading the pack. Amazon.com finished second at 46.2%, followed by BestBuy.com at 29.1%, and Target.com with 2.66%.

What’s more, Walmart.com’s discount frequency rate was nearly three times higher during Prime Week compared to the rest of the month (59.6% vs. 21.5%). BestBuy.com was second with about a 9 percentage point difference, followed by Amazon with a 6.2 percentage point difference, and last was Target.com with actually showed higher discount rates in the rest of the month than during Prime Week.

A slightly different story emerges when we look at the magnitude of discounts offered by these retailers during the month of July. Walmart.com again led the pack with a typical discount of 26.8% on discounted items. Amazon.com was second with 21.2%, followed BestBuy.com with a typical discount of 20.1%, and last was Target at 19.2%. The interesting takeaway is that only Amazon.com actually showed a higher discount magnitude during Prime Week compared to the other days of the month, while the other three retailers surprisingly showed higher discounts outside of Prime Week in July.

• Key CPI Takeaways for June 2025 & Macroeconomic Outlook
• Product Group Highlights
  • Appliances
  • Communication
  • Home Improvement
  • Personal Care
  • Recreation
• CPI 2025 Forecast: Macroeconomic Summary
• Methodology

Overall OpenBrand Consumer Price Index Movement: The OpenBrand CPI of Durable and Personal Goods recorded a +0.17% monthly change in July, notching the eighth consecutive month-over-month increase and 13th of the last 14th. While prices continue to grow, the magnitude of price change decelerated significantly from June’s large increase of +0.75%.

Discount Trends: July brought a relatively sharp increase in discount activity to the durables and personal goods sector, with frequencies rising month-over-month to 23.1% of all durable and personal goods from 21.2% in the month prior. This was the highest reading since December and the second largest in three years. Despite the uptick in discount frequency in July, the typical magnitude remained relatively unchanged at 20.2%. This suggests the flurry of discounting activity brought on by Amazon’s Prime Week and their competitors primarily brought breadth – but not depth – to pricing discounts of durable and personal goods.

Product Group Price Trends: Three product groups – Appliances, Communications, and Recreation – all experienced sharp decreases in the rate of price growth from the prior month, while Home Improvement was flat. Personal Care products exhibited relatively strong negative growth.

• Appliance Group (+0.21%)
• Communication Group (+0.16%)
• Home Improvement Group (+0.45%)
• Personal Care Group (-0.32%)
• Recreation Group (+0.23%)

See the full breakdown of product groupings. 

CPI: Appliances

Prices for appliances increased by +0.21% on a month-over-month basis in July, slowing from a revised decrease of +0.31% in the month prior. The deceleration in price growth was at least partially driven by an increase in the frequency of discounts (43.7% from 42.6% the month prior), while the typical discount magnitude increased slightly to 16.7% from 16.5% the month prior.

CPI: Communication

Prices of communication devices, including phones, tablets, computers, and printers, rose on a month-over-month basis to +0.16%, down sharply from a revised +1.29% the month prior. Both the frequency and magnitude of discounts increased in July, from 10.00% to 11.90% and 19.9% to 20.5%, respectively. This is the third consecutive month of both increasing discount frequencies and magnitudes in the communications group.

CPI: Home Improvement

The index for home improvement goods was essentially flat on a month-over-month basis and grew by +0.45% (down from +0.46% the month prior), showing 27 consecutive month-over-month flat or monthly increases. The increase in prices comes amidst slight increases in both the frequency (rising to 12.7% from 12.6%) and magnitude (rising to 18.5% from 17.8%). This is the second consecutive month in which discounting activity – in both frequency and magnitude – increased over the month prior.

CPI: Personal Care

Prices of personal care products decreased sharply on a monthly basis in July by -0.32%, down from +0.00% in June. This decrease comes amidst changes in the frequency of discounts increasing a full 420 basis points, growing to 26.1% in July from 21.9% in June. The typical discount magnitude increased by 50 basis points. from 21.2% in June to 21.7% in July.

CPI: Recreation

The rate of price growth of recreational products, including TVs, headphones, and speaker systems, decreased sharply to +0.23% on a month-over-month basis in July, down from a revised +1.80% in June. Some of this sharp decrease in the pace of price growth is at least partially due to an increase in the frequency of discounts – to 20.8% in July from 18.7% in June – and a moderate increase in the average magnitude of discounts – to 23.8% from 22.1% over the same time period.

As of August 2025, the U.S. economy stands at a pivotal moment—balancing between a broader cooling inflationary cycle with newly imposed tariffs by the Trump Administration.

Signs of cooling in rate-sensitive parts of the economy are increasingly visible. Residential investment remains subdued, with affordability challenges still weighing on home sales despite a modest drop in mortgage rates. Commercial real estate, especially office space, continues to struggle with vacancy and refinancing risk. Business capital spending has softened, particularly among smaller firms facing tighter lending standards.

Globally, the economic outlook remains mixed. Europe is facing stagnant growth, while China is managing a sluggish recovery amid weak consumer demand and ongoing property sector woes. Trade volumes are gradually recovering, but new patterns of supply chain diversification and industrial realignment are creating longer-term structural shifts. The U.S. is benefitting from “friendshoring” and renewed interest in domestic production, but the transition carries upfront costs that feed into prices and investment uncertainty.

Looking forward, the Federal Reserve is expected to begin lowering interest rates cautiously, with the first cut likely coming at the end of this quarter if inflation continues to trend downward. Given the transient nature of tariffs impacting price growth, we suspect prices may revert to a more downward trend. However, policymakers remain concerned about the risk of cutting too early and reigniting inflation, especially given the ongoing strength in consumer demand and wage growth. Financial markets have largely priced in a gradual easing cycle, though volatility remains a risk if inflation data surprises to the upside.

In summary, the U.S. economy in August 2025 is in a transitional phase—shifting from post-pandemic overheating to a slower, more sustainable path. Inflation may come back down after some acceleration in June, the result of the transient and stepwise impact of recently implemented tariffs. Economic growth is moderating, but not collapsing. And policy is shifting from restraint to gradual accommodation. The challenge for the rest of the year will be to maintain this delicate balance, ensuring that disinflation continues without tipping the economy into contraction. In sum, the foundation is solid, but the path forward could prove to be tricky from a monetary perspective.

Note: This summary is based on data available as of early August 2025 and may be subject to revisions in future releases.

For questions about the report, please contact Ralph McLaughlin at ralph@openbrand.com 

For press inquiries, please contact press@openbrand.com 

The OpenBrand CPI of Durable and Personal Goods is constructed using a data-driven methodology that ensures accuracy, timeliness, and transparency in measuring price trends for both short and long-lasting consumer products. The methodology consists of the following key components:

1. Data Collection

• Real-Time Price Tracking: Prices are sourced daily from online marketplaces, retail websites, and brick-and-mortar store listings.
• Retailer & Manufacturer Data: Aggregates pricing information from major retailers, direct-to-consumer brands, and wholesale suppliers into broader consumer categories.
• Temporal Coverage: Captures price variations over time, including daily discounts and price promotions

2. Product Selection & Tracking

• Durable and Personal Goods Focus: The index includes products with an expected lifespan of three years or more, such as home appliances, consumer electronics, and tools, as well as personal care products with a shorter lifespan, such as hair and skin care products, vitamins, over-the-counter medications, and oral care products. 
• Brand & Model Tracking: Individual brands and models are monitored to reflect pricing shifts within competitive product segments, including both permanent changes in listing price as well as temporary promotional pricing.

3. Price Calculation, Adjustments, and Weighting

• Price Calculation: Tracks month-over-month and year-over-year price movements to measure price stability in the marketplace and take into account both longer-term changes in pricing (such as changes in manufacturer’s suggested retail price) as well as more short-term changes in pricing, such as promotional discounts and sales prices. 
• SKU-Removal Instead of Hedonic Adjustments: When a product (or SKU) becomes unavailable in the BLS goods basket, the BLS implements a SKU-replacement procedure whereby the next most similar product is used in its place, and a quality (hedonic) adjustment procedure is performed to get closer to an apples-to-apples price comparison. Since OpenBrand has data on nearly 100% of the SKUs pricing history in a given product category, we can simply remove that SKU from the basket and rely on price changes of the remaining SKUs in that basket. This eliminates the need for hedonic adjustment in the OpenBrand CPI basket.
• Weighting and Aggregation Method: A weighted geometric mean formula is used to minimize volatility and improve stability in price trend analysis at both the product grouping and category level. Instead of using sales-volume weights when aggregating the index, we take an alternative approach by using persistence-based weights for aggregation. Instead of more frequently purchased items getting more weight in the BLS’ CPI calculation, OpenBrand takes a more novel approach by weighting items with a more established price history in the market more heavily in our CPI calculation than items with a less established history.

4. Reporting & Updates

• High-Frequency Updates: Published freely on a monthly basis, with a subscription option for daily summaries across categories, sub-categories, and individual products.
• Comparative Benchmarks: We aggregate pricing as analogously as possible to traditional BLS CPI measures for benchmarking purposes.
• Transparency & Accessibility: Provides both open and paid data access for journalists, researchers, businesses, and policymakers.

By leveraging real-time data and advanced statistical techniques, the OpenBrand CPI offers an accurate and dynamic measure of pricing trends, helping businesses and consumers make informed decisions in an evolving economic landscape.

Price growth for consumer durables and personal goods once again accelerated on a monthly basis in June, with a month-over-month increase of 0.76% compared to a revised monthly 0.48% increase in May. Price growth was driven primarily by acceleration of communication, personal care, and recreation products. Across the largest moving categories in June 2025, price growth acceleration was concentrated among hair dryers, headphones, mowers, printers, and printer ink, with monthly increases of between +0.6% and 2.0%.

• Key CPI Takeaways for June 2025 & Macroeconomic Outlook
• Product Group Highlights
  • Appliances
  • Communication
  • Home Improvement
  • Personal Care
  • Recreation
• CPI 2025 Forecast: Macroeconomic Summary
• Methodology

Now that the first half of 2025 is behind us, an important question to ask is: which product categories have seen the largest price increases since the beginning of the year? Simply put, the largest increases have been among consumer electronics and appliances, with the top 10 categories in price growth showing a net annual increase of between 4.2% and 2.6%

Consumer tech and kitchen gear saw the sharpest price jumps in the first half of 2025.

• Sound bars led with a 4.2% increase, followed by headphones (3.8%) and over-the-range microwaves (3.7%).

• Home office essentials weren’t far behind—monitors, printers, and ink rose between 3.1%–3.5%, signaling ongoing demand for hybrid work setups.

• Hair dryers and TVs ticked up 3.0%, while toner and laundry appliances saw more modest hikes of 2.7% and 2.6%.

Across the board, electronics and appliances continue to feel inflationary pressure, with entertainment and work-from-home gear leading the charge.

Overall OpenBrand Consumer Price Index Movement: The OpenBrand CPI of Durable and Personal Goods recorded a +0.76% monthly change in June, notching the seventh consecutive month-over-month increase and 12th of the last 13th, as retailers continue passing along some of the costs of their import tariffs to consumers. The magnitude of price change also accelerated in June, with yet another considerable increase over the prior month’s increase of +0.48%.

Discount Trends: June again brought very slight changes to the frequency and magnitude of discounts to the durables and personal goods sector, with frequencies rising month-over-month to 21.2% of all durable and personal goods from 20.5% in the month prior, and the typical magnitude remaining unchanged at 19.5%. How is it possible that prices could rise while the frequency of discounts increases? Simply put, retailers are likely using psychological warfare to soften the blow of price increases by increasing the list price of products while discounting more of them to a shelf price that is higher than prior months. 

Product Group Price Trends: Three product groups – Communications, Personal Care, and Recreation – all experienced sharp increases in price growth from the prior month, while two groups –  Appliances and Home Improvement – experienced positive but slowing rates of price growth.

• Appliance Group (+0.29%)
• Communication Group (+0.86%)
• Home Improvement Group (+0.39%)
• Personal Care Group (+0.58%)
• Recreation Group (+1.51%)

See the full breakdown of product groupings. 

CPI: Appliances

Prices for appliances increased by +0.29% on a month-over-month basis in June, slowing from a revised decrease of 0.77% in the month prior. The deceleration in price growth was at least partially driven by an increase in the frequency of discounts (42.6% from 40.6% the month prior), while the typical discount magnitude remained unchanged at 16.5% The trend remains relatively stable at between 38% and 43% for frequencies, and mid-teens for discounts, since May 2024.

CPI: Communication

Prices of communication devices, including phones, tablets, computers, and printers, rose on a month-over-month basis to 0.86%, up from a revised 0.25% the month prior. While both the frequency and magnitude of discounts increased in June, from 7.74% to 9.84% and 19.0% to 19.9%, respectively, net prices are still rising at least in part because sellers are also raising their list prices while maintaining, and even expanding, existing discounts to take the sting out of rising prices.

CPI: Home Improvement

The index for home improvement goods decelerated to +0.39% on a month-over-month basis, showing 26 consecutive month-over-month flat or monthly increases but down from +0.78% May. The increase in prices comes amidst increases in both the frequency (rising to 12.7% from 11.0%) and magnitude (rising to 17.9% from 17.0%), suggesting that retailers of home improvement goods continue to increase their list prices while maintaining and even increasing promotional discounts in order to help ease the sting of rising prices.

CPI: Personal Care

Prices of personal care products increased sharply again on a monthly basis in June 2025 by +0.58%, up from +0.19% in May. This increase comes during changes in both the frequency and magnitude of discounts, with the frequency increasing to 21.9% from 19.4%, while the typical discount magnitude decreased from 21.5% in May to 21.2% in June.

CPI: Recreation

Prices of recreational products, including TVs, headphones, and speaker systems, increased sharply by +1.77% on a month-over-month basis in June, up from a revised +0.42% in May. This is the 12th increase over the past 13 months. Some of this sharp increase in the pace of price growth is at least partially due to a sharp decrease in the frequency of discounts – to 18.9% in June from 23.6% in May – and a slight decrease in the average magnitude of discounts – to 22.2% from 23.4% over the same time period. 

As of mid-2025, global price growth continues to moderate from the post-pandemic highs seen in 2022 and 2023. However, inflation remains uneven across sectors and regions due to lingering supply-side constraints, tariff-driven cost pressures, and resilient demand in key service industries. Policymakers are now navigating a narrow path: ensuring inflation continues to fall without triggering a sharp economic slowdown.

Inflation in most advanced economies has eased to around 2–3%, down from double-digit peaks. Emerging markets have seen more variation, with some countries experiencing renewed inflation due to currency depreciation and energy price volatility. In the United States, headline inflation ticked up slightly in Q2 2025, driven by new tariffs on goods from China and Mexico, as well as seasonal increases in travel, energy, and food prices. Core inflation, however, is trending downward, suggesting a gradual return to the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, as the influence of pandemic-era bottlenecks wanes.

While our data shows inflation for durable and personal goods accelerated again in June, our outlook for July is more modest, especially given last week’s announcement (Monday, July 7) that the reciprocal tariff deadline – originally planned for July 9th – would be extended to August 1st. 

Also in the announcement, President Trump set out plans for a 40% tariff on goods from Myanmar and Laos, a 36% tariff on goods from Thailand and Cambodia, a 35% tariff on goods from Serbia and Bangladesh, a 32% tariff on Indonesia, a 30% tariff on goods from South Africa and a 25% tariff on goods from Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, and Tunisia. If these tariffs are indeed implement on August 1st, we could see inflation continue to rise well into 2025Q3 and beyond.

Key Drivers of Price Growth in 2025 H2

New tariffs imposed in early 2025, especially by the U.S., are adding to the cost of durable goods, electronics, and construction materials. Firms are passing some of these costs to consumers. Labor markets remain tight in many economies, especially in healthcare, education, and hospitality, contributing to persistent services inflation. Oil prices rose modestly due to production cuts by major exporters and ongoing geopolitical uncertainty in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Food prices have been volatile due to extreme weather events disrupting supply chains. Increased use of AI and automation in logistics, retail, and manufacturing is helping to mitigate some inflationary pressures, particularly in goods-producing sectors.

Sector Highlights

Consumer Durables: Prices are rising modestly due to tariffs and global shipping costs, especially among products that did not qualify for the April 2025 tariff exemptions, which covered products like smartphones, computers, laptops, monitors, memory cards, semiconductor devices, modems, routers, and flat panel displays 

Housing: The housing market is poised to have one of the slowest non-recessionary years in recent history. Higher mortgage rates are dampening demand, but limited inventory is keeping prices elevated in some urban areas.

Healthcare and Education: These sectors continue to see above-average inflation due to labor intensity and limited productivity gains.

Transportation: Airline and automotive prices are elevated compared to last year, driven by fuel costs and supply chain rebuilding.

Monetary Policy Outlook

Central banks, including the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank, have paused interest rate hikes but remain cautious. Markets anticipate potential rate cuts in late 2025 or early 2026, contingent on further inflation moderation and stable labor markets. Policymakers are wary of cutting too soon and reigniting inflationary pressures, especially in politically sensitive sectors like housing and food.

How Will the One Big Beautiful Bill Affect the U.S. Economy and Inflation?

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), signed into law on July 4, 2025, introduces significant changes to U.S. fiscal policy, with immediate and long-term implications for the economy and inflation.

In the near term, the OBBBA is expected to provide a modest boost to economic growth. Analyses suggest an average GDP increase of 0.2 to 0.4 percentage points annually through 2027, primarily due to tax cuts and increased government spending . Proponents argue that these measures will enhance consumer spending and business investment. However, critics caution that the benefits may be unevenly distributed and could exacerbate income inequality .

Over the next decade, the OBBBA is projected to significantly increase the federal deficit. The Congressional Budget Office estimates an addition of $2.8 trillion to the national debt by 2034 . 

These fiscal changes may lead to higher interest rates and reduced private investment, potentially slowing long-term economic growth .

The substantial increase in government spending and tax cuts could exert upward pressure on inflation. Additionally, the weakening of the U.S. dollar and potential reluctance from foreign investors to purchase U.S. debt could further complicate monetary policy .

The OBBBA rolls back several clean energy initiatives, including tax credits for renewable energy and electric vehicles. These changes could increase household energy costs and result in significant job losses in the clean energy sector.

The legislation introduces work requirements for Medicaid and SNAP recipients and reduces funding for these programs. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that approximately 10.9 million Americans could lose health insurance coverage as a result. Such changes could lead to increased medical debt and adverse health outcomes, particularly among low-income populations.

While the One Big Beautiful Bill Act aims to stimulate economic growth through tax cuts and increased spending, it raises concerns about long-term fiscal sustainability, inflation, and the well-being of vulnerable populations. The legislation’s impact on clean energy initiatives and social programs may have lasting effects on the U.S. economy and public health, but could spur economic growth in the short-run through new and extended tax cuts to middle and higher-income workers.

Note: This summary is based on data available as of early July 2025 and may be subject to revisions in future releases.

For questions about the report, please contact Ralph McLaughlin at ralph@openbrand.com 

For press inquiries, please contact press@openbrand.com 

The OpenBrand CPI of Durable and Personal Goods is constructed using a data-driven methodology that ensures accuracy, timeliness, and transparency in measuring price trends for both short and long-lasting consumer products. The methodology consists of the following key components:

1. Data Collection

• Real-Time Price Tracking: Prices are sourced daily from online marketplaces, retail websites, and brick-and-mortar store listings.
• Retailer & Manufacturer Data: Aggregates pricing information from major retailers, direct-to-consumer brands, and wholesale suppliers into broader consumer categories.
• Temporal Coverage: Captures price variations over time, including daily discounts and price promotions

2. Product Selection & Tracking

• Durable and Personal Goods Focus: The index includes products with an expected lifespan of three years or more, such as home appliances, consumer electronics, and tools, as well as personal care products with a shorter lifespan, such as hair and skin care products, vitamins, over-the-counter medications, and oral care products. 
• Brand & Model Tracking: Individual brands and models are monitored to reflect pricing shifts within competitive product segments, including both permanent changes in listing price as well as temporary promotional pricing.

3. Price Calculation, Adjustments, and Weighting

• Price Calculation: Tracks month-over-month and year-over-year price movements to measure price stability in the marketplace and take into account both longer-term changes in pricing (such as changes in manufacturer’s suggested retail price) as well as more short-term changes in pricing, such as promotional discounts and sales prices. 
• SKU-Removal Instead of Hedonic Adjustments: When a product (or SKU) becomes unavailable in the BLS goods basket, the BLS implements a SKU-replacement procedure whereby the next most similar product is used in its place, and a quality (hedonic) adjustment procedure is performed to get closer to an apples-to-apples price comparison. Since OpenBrand has data on nearly 100% of the SKUs pricing history in a given product category, we can simply remove that SKU from the basket and rely on price changes of the remaining SKUs in that basket. This eliminates the need for hedonic adjustment in the OpenBrand CPI basket.
• Weighting and Aggregation Method: A weighted geometric mean formula is used to minimize volatility and improve stability in price trend analysis at both the product grouping and category level. Instead of using sales-volume weights when aggregating the index, we take an alternative approach by using persistence-based weights for aggregation. Instead of more frequently purchased items getting more weight in the BLS’ CPI calculation, OpenBrand takes a more novel approach by weighting items with a more established price history in the market more heavily in our CPI calculation than items with a less established history.

4. Reporting & Updates

• High-Frequency Updates: Published freely on a monthly basis, with a subscription option for daily summaries across categories, sub-categories, and individual products.
• Comparative Benchmarks: We aggregate pricing as analogously as possible to traditional BLS CPI measures for benchmarking purposes.
• Transparency & Accessibility: Provides both open and paid data access for journalists, researchers, businesses, and policymakers.

By leveraging real-time data and advanced statistical techniques, the OpenBrand CPI offers an accurate and dynamic measure of pricing trends, helping businesses and consumers make informed decisions in an evolving economic landscape.

Price growth for consumer durables and personal goods accelerated sharply on a monthly basis in May, with a month-over-month increase of 0.53% compared to a revised monthly 0.35% increase in April. Price growth was driven primarily by acceleration of appliances, home improvement, and personal care products. Across the largest moving categories, price growth acceleration was concentrated in acne care, dishwashers, hair styling products, countertop microwaves, outdoor cooking, shaving razors, sound bars, and TVs, with monthly increases of between +1.24% and 2.92%.

We attribute some of the recent acceleration in price growth to the continued and varied enforcement of U.S. tariffs on specific product types. The tariffs have targeted a wide range of goods imported from China and other major U.S. trading partners, and span a variety of goods covered in our CPI basket. What’s more, some products – particularly those imported from China that aren’t part of the April exclusion with a high turnover- are more susceptible to the impacts of tariffs than others, as importers and retailers of such goods face increasing pressure to pass costs onto consumers. For example, prices for items like acne care, dishwashers, hair styling products, countertop microwaves, outdoor cooking, shaving razors, sound bars, and TVs accelerated the most, with an acceleration of price growth across these categories from -2.93% to -0.45% in April to +1.24% to 2.92% in May. 

Overall OpenBrand Consumer Price Index Movement: The OpenBrand CPI of Durable and Personal Goods recorded a 0.53% monthly change in May, notching the sixth consecutive month-over-month increase as retailers begin passing along some of the costs of their import tariffs to consumers. The magnitude of price change accelerated again in May, with a considerable increase over last month’s increase of 0.35%.

Discount Trends: May again brought very slight changes to the frequency and magnitude of discounts to the durables and personal goods sector, with frequencies rising month-over-month to 21.2% of all durable and personal goods from 21.1% in the month prior, and the typical magnitude remaining unchanged at 19.5%. Given lingering uncertainty surrounding the current state of trade negotiations, we expect discounting activity to remain steady, or even decrease, over the coming months. 

Product Group Price Trends: Three product groups – Appliances, Home Improvement, and Personal Care – all experienced sharp increases in price growth from the prior month, while two groups –  Communication and Recreation – experienced positive but slowing rates of price growth.

• Appliance Group (+0.77%)
• Communication Group (+0.14%)
• Home Improvement Group (+0.81%)
• Personal Care Group (+5.6%)
• Recreation Group (+3.6%)

See the full breakdown of product groupings. 

CPI: Appliances

Prices for appliances increased sharply by +0.77% on a month-over-month basis in May, accelerating from a revised decrease of 0.09% in the month prior. The acceleration in price growth was at least partially driven by a small decrease in both the frequency (40.7% from 41.3% the month prior) and magnitude (16.8% from 16.6%) of discounts, but the trend has been relatively stable at between 38% and 43% for frequencies, and mid-teens for discounts, since May 2024.

CPI: Communication

Prices of communication devices, including phones, tablets, computers, and printers, rose on a month-over-month basis to 0.14%, down from a revised 0.97% the month prior. Some of the slowdown in price growth was likely due to an increase in both the frequency and magnitude of discounts. The frequency of discounts increased over the month from 5.5% in April to 7.9% in May, but both months were down by about half since May 2024, when they ranged from about 12.0% to 14.5%. The magnitude of discounts decreased by just 30 basis points, from 18.7% in April to 19.0% in May.

CPI: Home Improvement

The index for home improvement goods increased sharply in May to +0.81% on a month-over-month basis, showing 26 consecutive month-over-month flat or monthly increases and up from +0.59% April. The increase in prices comes amidst relatively minor changes in both the frequency and magnitude of discounts, suggesting that such price changes are being driven by upward adjustments in shelf pricing. The frequency of discounts was 11.1% of products in May, down from 12.1% in April. In addition to the decrease in the share of products with a discount, the magnitude of discounts also decreased slightly month-over-month, falling from 17.4% in April to 16.9% in May. 

CPI: Personal Care

Prices of personal care products increased sharply on a monthly basis in May 2025 by 0.56%, a strong reversal of trends of -0.14% in March and -0.39% in April. This increase comes during changes in both the frequency and magnitude of discounts, with the frequency decreasing by 140 basis points from 24.0% in April to 22.6% in May. The typical discount magnitude increased very slightly, from 21.2% in April to 21.3% in May.

CPI: Recreation

Prices of recreational products, including TVs, headphones, and speaker systems, increased by 0.36% on a month-over-month basis in May, down from a revised 0.70% in April. This is the tenth increase over the past eleven months. Some of this slowdown in the pace of price growth is at least partially due to an increase in the frequency of discounts – to 23.8% in May from 22.8% in April – and a slight increase in the average magnitude of discounts – to 23.5% from 23.3% over the same time period.

The U.S. economy has entered a period of moderated growth, shaped heavily by trade policy developments and persistent inflationary pressures. Following a strong 2024, economic momentum softened in early 2025. The first quarter saw a -0.3% contraction in real GDP, primarily driven by a front-loaded surge in imports as businesses moved to circumvent new tariffs introduced under the Trump administration. Despite the contraction, domestic demand remains relatively healthy, with consumer spending and capital investment providing ongoing support. Our outlook still assumes the U.S. economy avoids a recession in 2025, with full-year GDP growth expected to land at 1.3%, increasing to 1.5% in 2026. Growth will remain below trend, however, and macroeconomic risks remain elevated.

The Federal Reserve has held its policy rate steady at 4.25%–4.5%, though we expect it to begin cutting rates in Q3 and assume this will be a response to a continued slowdown in economic activity. Markets now anticipate three 25-basis-point cuts in the second half of 2025, eventually bringing the federal funds rate closer to its estimated neutral level of 3% by 2026. Long-term yields are expected to stay near 4.2%, as elevated inflation and fiscal concerns limit downward pressure.

While headline BLS CPI and BEA PCE inflation has decelerated in recent months, as we show below this improvement may be temporary. New tariffs implemented in April are expected to reaccelerate inflation in the second half of the year. That said, our forecast is that the BLS CPI will peak near 2% on a year-over-year basis for consumer durables before returning to a deflationary trend that existed prior to the current tariff environment.

Labor market conditions remain solid but are softening. April saw a gain of 177,000 jobs, with unemployment holding at 4.2%. Job growth is expected to slow into 2026, with the unemployment rate projected to reach 4.9% by year-end 2026. The 2025 forecast includes approximately 900,000 new jobs, though the labor market is expected to flatline next year.

Tariffs remain the most influential policy lever impacting the near-term outlook. The effective tariff rate is projected to peak around 20% by mid-2025, gradually falling to 8% by the end of President Trump’s term. While some sectors experienced a short-term boost from inventory stockpiling, the broader economic impact is negative—particularly for import-reliant industries and capital-intensive sectors facing rising input costs.

The housing sector is under pressure from rising materials costs and a constrained labor supply due to immigration restrictions. While underlying demand remains intact, affordability challenges and elevated mortgage rates are limiting both new starts and existing home sales. National home prices are expected to post low single-digit growth. In commercial real estate, persistent vacancy rates and high borrowing costs are weighing on valuations, though “extend-and-pretend” lending strategies are preventing widespread distress.

Key Risks to Monitor, Summer 2025:

• Downside: Sustained or escalating tariffs, renewed inflation shocks, tighter financial conditions, or a deterioration in global growth.
• Upside: Faster easing of trade tensions, stronger-than-expected labor force growth, or a sustained rebound in productivity.

In summary, the June 2025 outlook reflects a U.S. economy in transition—moving from recovery to a slower, more fragile expansion. Monetary policy easing is likely, but contingent on inflation trends. Trade policy will remain a primary driver of macroeconomic volatility in the months ahead, and internal planning should reflect both the potential for policy normalization and elevated downside risk.

Note: This summary is based on data available as of early June 2025 and may be subject to revisions in future releases.

The OpenBrand CPI of Durable and Personal Goods is constructed using a data-driven methodology that ensures accuracy, timeliness, and transparency in measuring price trends for both short and long-lasting consumer products. The methodology consists of the following key components:

1. Data Collection

• Real-Time Price Tracking: Prices are sourced daily from online marketplaces, retail websites, and brick-and-mortar store listings.
• Retailer & Manufacturer Data: Aggregates pricing information from major retailers, direct-to-consumer brands, and wholesale suppliers into broader consumer categories.
• Temporal Coverage: Captures price variations over time, including daily discounts and price promotions

2. Product Selection & Tracking

• Durable and Personal Goods Focus: The index includes products with an expected lifespan of three years or more, such as home appliances, consumer electronics, and tools, as well as personal care products with a shorter lifespan, such as hair and skin care products, vitamins, over-the-counter medications, and oral care products. 
• Brand & Model Tracking: Individual brands and models are monitored to reflect pricing shifts within competitive product segments, including both permanent changes in listing price as well as temporary promotional pricing.

3. Price Calculation, Adjustments, and Weighting

• Price Calculation: Tracks month-over-month and year-over-year price movements to measure price stability in the marketplace and take into account both longer-term changes in pricing (such as changes in manufacturer’s suggested retail price) as well as more short-term changes in pricing, such as promotional discounts and sales prices. 
• SKU-Removal Instead of Hedonic Adjustments: When a product (or SKU) becomes unavailable in the BLS goods basket, the BLS implements a SKU-replacement procedure whereby the next most similar product is used in its place, and a quality (hedonic) adjustment procedure is performed to get closer to an apples-to-apples price comparison. Since OpenBrand has data on nearly 100% of the SKUs pricing history in a given product category, we can simply remove that SKU from the basket and rely on price changes of the remaining SKUs in that basket. This eliminates the need for hedonic adjustment in the OpenBrand CPI basket.
• Weighting and Aggregation Method: A weighted geometric mean formula is used to minimize volatility and improve stability in price trend analysis at both the product grouping and category level. Instead of using sales-volume weights when aggregating the index, we take an alternative approach by using persistence-based weights for aggregation. Instead of more frequently purchased items getting more weight in the BLS’ CPI calculation, OpenBrand takes a more novel approach by weighting items with a more established price history in the market more heavily in our CPI calculation than items with a less established history.

4. Reporting & Updates

• High-Frequency Updates: Published freely on a monthly basis, with a subscription option for daily summaries across categories, sub-categories, and individual products.
• Comparative Benchmarks: We aggregate pricing as analogously as possible to traditional BLS CPI measures for benchmarking purposes.
• Transparency & Accessibility: Provides both open and paid data access for journalists, researchers, businesses, and policymakers.

By leveraging real-time data and advanced statistical techniques, the OpenBrand CPI offers an accurate and dynamic measure of pricing trends, helping businesses and consumers make informed decisions in an evolving economic landscape.

Price growth for consumer durables and personal goods accelerated on a monthly basis in April, with a sharp month-over-month increase of 0.35% compared to a revised monthly 0.12% increase in March. Price growth was driven primarily by upward price movements of communications devices and equipment, home improvement items, and recreational goods. Across the largest moving categories, price growth acceleration was concentrated in desktop computers, headphones, ink, monitors, notebooks, projectors, power tools, and toner, with monthly increases of between +0.63% and 1.98%.

Given general deflationary trends at the end of last year and the beginning of this year, we suspect some of the recent acceleration in price growth was driven in part by the implementation of U.S. tariffs over the past few months. The tariffs have targeted a wide range of goods imported from China and other major U.S. trading partners, and span a variety of goods covered in our CPI basket, including electronics, tools, and other everyday consumer products. As importers of goods from newly tariffed countries faced higher costs, it’s likely many passed those increases along to retailers and, ultimately, consumers. 

Prices for items like desktop computers, headphones, ink, monitors, notebooks, projectors, power tools, and toner accelerated the most, with an acceleration of price growth across these categories from 0% – 0.3% in March to 0.63%-1.98% in April. It’s likely that not only have such tariffs raised import costs, but also strained supply chains, compounding upward pressure on prices and adding uncertainty to the economic outlook. The good news, however, is that there appears to be a willingness of the Trump administration to cut trade deals in the coming months. As such, we anticipate inflation to be more transient in nature throughout the remainder of the year as trade deals get inked.

Macroeconomic Outlook Update: The U.S. economy is now exhibiting mixed signals. On one hand, the labor market remains resilient—April saw a stronger-than-expected addition of 177,000 jobs. On the other hand, early GDP estimates reflect a modest contraction in Q1, driven in part by front-loaded inventory accumulation ahead of tariff hikes. As reported in this report as well as from official government sources, iInflation continues to trend above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, fueled by rising import prices and supply chain adjustments. Core goods inflation is up, while services inflation remains sticky.

Financial markets are responding cautiously. The S&P 500, after a sharp drop earlier in the year, is stabilizing but remains volatile. Business confidence has dipped, particularly in manufacturing and construction, which are sensitive to input costs and global demand shifts. The Fed is expected to hold interest rates steady through the summer while assessing the full impact of trade measures on inflation and growth.

Looking ahead, the global economic outlook for the second half of 2025 will depend heavily on policy responses—particularly whether central banks can maintain credibility while navigating between inflation control and supporting growth. The baseline scenario points to slower but positive growth in the U.S. and modest recovery potential in Europe and Asia. However, risks are tilted to the downside, primarily due to geopolitical tensions, trade fragmentation, and tighter financial conditions. As mentioned last month, the long-term impact on prices and macroeconomic conditions from current trade tensions is less clear, and will depend upon other factors such as Federal Reserve Board interest rate decisions, household and/or business tax cuts, and the outcome of ongoing multilateral trade negotiations.

Today’s announcement of cooling trade tensions between the U.S. and China – which has led to a reduction of tariffs on imports from China to 30% for 90 days – is a positive step that indicates a full-on trade deal is in the works. That said, 30% is larger than the 20% that has remained in effect over the past month, so we won’t fully expect price pressures to ease – or turn negative – until effective tariffs on durable and personal goods from China fall back down below that 20% threshold.

Overall Index Movement: The OpenBrand CPI of Durable and Personal Goods recorded a 0.35% monthly change in April, notching the fifth consecutive month-over-month increase as retailers continue to grapple with an intensifying tariff environment in the first month of the second quarter. The magnitude of price change accelerated considerably compared with last month’s increase of 0.12%.

Discount Trends: April brought very slight changes to the incidence and amount of discounts to the durables and personal goods sector, with frequencies rising month-over-month to 21.2% of all durable and personal goods from 20.5% in the month prior, and the typical magnitude decreasing to 19.5% from 20.6%. With price uncertainty remaining high due to ongoing trade negotiations, we should expect overall trends in discounting activity to remain in a holding pattern until more clarity emerges.

Product Group Price Trends: Three product groups – Communications, Home Improvement, and Recreation – all experienced sharp increases in price growth from the prior month, while two groups – Appliances and Personal Care – experienced declines:

• Appliance Group (-0.1%)
• Communication Group (+1.0%)
• Home Improvement Group (+0.5%)
• Personal Care Group (-0.4%)
• Recreation Group (TVs, speakers, and headphones) (+0.7%)

See the full breakdown of product groupings. 

CPI: Appliances

Prices for appliances decreased slightly by 0.06% on a month-over-month basis in March, decelerating from strong growth of 0.47% in the month prior. The discount frequency on appliances increased by nearly three percentage points, from 38.8% in March to 41.5% in April, but the trend has been relatively stable at between 38% and 43% since May 2024. However, the magnitude of such discounts decreased slightly over the month to 16.8% from 17.0% the month prior, and has remained in the low-to-mid teens since the onset of the pandemic.

CPI: Communication

Prices of communication devices, including phones, tablets, computers, and printers, rose sharply on a month-over-month basis to 0.97%, up from a revised 0.05% the month prior. This is the fifth consecutive month where monthly price growth was either flat or positive. Much of the increase in prices was likely due to a drop in both the frequency and magnitude of discounts. The frequency of discounts decreased over the month from 8.0% in March to 5.5% in April, but both months were down by about half since May 2024, when they ranged from about 12.0% to 14.5%. The magnitude of discounts decreased by 400 basis points, from 23.0% in March to 19.0% in April.

CPI: Home Improvement

The index for home improvement goods increased sharply in April to 0.54% on a month-over-month basis, showing 25 consecutive month-over-month flat or monthly increases and up from a flat change in March. Much of the increase in prices was likely due to a drop in both the frequency and magnitude of discounts. The frequency of discounts was 12.0% of products in April, down from 12.4% in March. In addition to the increase in the share of products with a discount, the magnitude of discounts also decreased month-over-month, falling from 18.3% in March to 17.4% in April.

CPI: Personal Care

Prices of personal care products fell on a monthly basis in April 2025 by 0.43%, the second consecutive month of month-over-month declines. Some of this decrease may be due to a slight increase in the incidence and magnitude of price discounts, with the share of discounted personal care products increasing from a revised 23.4% in March to 24.4% in April and the average discount magnitude growing from 20.7% to 21.3% over the same period.

CPI: Recreation

Prices of recreational products, including TVs, headphones, and speaker systems, increased by 0.74% on a month-over-month basis in April, up sharply from 0.20% in March. This is the ninth increase over the past ten months. While the frequency of discounts increased to 22.8% in April from 19.7% in March, the average magnitude of discounts decreased from 23.9% to 23.2% over the same time period.

As of May 2025, the global economy is facing heightened uncertainty amid evolving trade dynamics, stubborn inflationary pressures, and signs of slowing growth in key advanced economies. The United States remains the focal point of macroeconomic discussion, following the full implementation of a sweeping set of tariffs introduced under President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” policy, which is already reshaping global trade patterns and domestic price levels.

The U.S. economy is exhibiting mixed signals. On one hand, the labor market remains resilient—April saw a stronger-than-expected addition of 177,000 jobs. On the other hand, early GDP estimates reflect a modest contraction in Q1, driven in part by front-loaded inventory accumulation ahead of tariff hikes. Inflation continues to trend above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, fueled by rising import prices and supply chain adjustments. Core goods inflation is up, while services inflation remains sticky.

Financial markets have responded cautiously. The S&P 500, after a sharp drop earlier in the year, is stabilizing but remains volatile. Business confidence has dipped, particularly in manufacturing and construction, which are sensitive to input costs and global demand shifts. The Fed is expected to hold interest rates steady through the summer while assessing the full impact of trade measures on inflation and growth.

The European economy is experiencing stagnation, with weak industrial output and declining consumer sentiment. The European Central Bank is expected to begin modest rate cuts in Q2 to prevent deflationary risks. In Asia, China is contending with sluggish growth and persistent weakness in the real estate sector, even as it pursues targeted stimulus and supply-side reforms. Export volumes have declined in response to U.S. tariffs, prompting further realignment in regional trade relationships.

The Trump administration’s tariff regime has become a central risk factor in global forecasts. With universal 10% tariffs on all imports and higher sectoral rates on key partners like China and the EU, retaliation is expected to escalate, potentially fragmenting global supply chains further. While some U.S. industries may benefit from reduced foreign competition, consumers and globally integrated firms are facing rising costs.

Looking ahead, the global economic outlook for the second half of 2025 will depend heavily on policy responses—particularly whether central banks can maintain credibility while navigating between inflation control and supporting growth. The baseline scenario points to slower but positive growth in the U.S. and modest recovery potential in Europe and Asia. However, risks are tilted to the downside, primarily due to geopolitical tensions, trade fragmentation, and tighter financial conditions.

Note: This summary is based on data available as of early May 2025 and may be subject to revisions in future releases. In the May 2025 release, we have adjusted the group weighting when aggregating group-level changes to changes in the overall CPI-DPG, moving from a slight skew from communications and personal goods to an equal weighting scheme. We have back-revised all prior numbers in the release to reflect this change in weighting procedure.

The OpenBrand CPI of Durable and Personal Goods is constructed using a data-driven methodology that ensures accuracy, timeliness, and transparency in measuring price trends for both short and long-lasting consumer products. The methodology consists of the following key components:

1. Data Collection

• Real-Time Price Tracking: Prices are sourced daily from online marketplaces, retail websites, and brick-and-mortar store listings.
• Retailer & Manufacturer Data: Aggregates pricing information from major retailers, direct-to-consumer brands, and wholesale suppliers into broader consumer categories.
• Temporal Coverage: Captures price variations over time, including daily discounts and price promotions

2. Product Selection & Tracking

• Durable and Personal Goods Focus: The index includes products with an expected lifespan of three years or more, such as home appliances, consumer electronics, and tools, as well as personal care products with a shorter lifespan, such as hair and skin care products, vitamins, over-the-counter medications, and oral care products. 
• Brand & Model Tracking: Individual brands and models are monitored to reflect pricing shifts within competitive product segments, including both permanent changes in listing price as well as temporary promotional pricing.

3. Price Calculation, Adjustments, and Weighting

• Price Calculation: Tracks month-over-month and year-over-year price movements to measure price stability in the marketplace and take into account both longer-term changes in pricing (such as changes in manufacturer’s suggested retail price) as well as more short-term changes in pricing, such as promotional discounts and sales prices. 
• SKU-Removal Instead of Hedonic Adjustments: When a product (or SKU) becomes unavailable in the BLS goods basket, the BLS implements a SKU-replacement procedure whereby the next most similar product is used in its place, and a quality (hedonic) adjustment procedure is performed to get closer to an apples-to-apples price comparison. Since OpenBrand has data on nearly 100% of the SKUs pricing history in a given product category, we can simply remove that SKU from the basket and rely on price changes of the remaining SKUs in that basket. This eliminates the need for hedonic adjustment in the OpenBrand CPI basket.
• Weighting and Aggregation Method: A weighted geometric mean formula is used to minimize volatility and improve stability in price trend analysis at both the product grouping and category level. Instead of using sales-volume weights when aggregating the index, we take an alternative approach by using persistence-based weights for aggregation. Instead of more frequently purchased items getting more weight in the BLS’ CPI calculation, OpenBrand takes a more novel approach by weighting items with a more established price history in the market more heavily in our CPI calculation than items with a less established history.

4. Reporting & Updates

• High-Frequency Updates: Published freely on a monthly basis, with a subscription option for daily summaries across categories, sub-categories, and individual products.
• Comparative Benchmarks: We aggregate pricing as analogously as possible to traditional BLS CPI measures for benchmarking purposes.
• Transparency & Accessibility: Provides both open and paid data access for journalists, researchers, businesses, and policymakers.

By leveraging real-time data and advanced statistical techniques, the OpenBrand CPI offers an accurate and dynamic measure of pricing trends, helping businesses and consumers make informed decisions in an evolving economic landscape.

Overall Index Movement:

The OpenBrand CPI of Durable and Personal Goods recorded a 0.2% monthly change in March, notching the fourth consecutive month-over-month increase in prices and the fifth of the last six as retailers continue to grapple with additional tariffs imposed on Canada, China, and Mexico. The magnitude of price change accelerated slightly compared with last month’s increase of 0.1%. This marks a reversal of the deflationary trend observed throughout the second half 2024.

With the implementation of a 10% tariff on goods imported from China in February, followed by an additional 10% on goods imported as of March 4th (bringing the total to 20%), we suspect some of these increases are beginning to affect prices of goods with Chinese origin, especially in the appliances and recreation price groups.

Looking ahead, last week’s (April 2nd) announcement of 10% baseline tariffs across all trading partners and additional reciprocal tariffs on trading partners with the largest tariffs on U.S. exports gives us expectations of further price growth across all groups in next month’s release and throughout the remainder of the first half of 2025. The long-term impact on prices and macroeconomic conditions is less clear, and will depend upon other factors such as Federal Reserve Board interest rate decisions, household and/or business tax cuts, and the outcome of multilateral trade agreements.

Discount Trends: March brought a slight buck to an otherwise falling trend in both the frequency and magnitude of resellers’ discounts, with the frequency rising month-over-month to 24.0% of all durable and personal goods from 23.5% in the month prior, and the typical magnitude increasing to 20.1% from 19.5%. Some of the increase is likely due to Apple’s product announcements in March that forced Apple to lower their price of older models as well as forced competitors to lower prices of their competing products.

What’s more, retailers of home improvement products also increased their discount frequency and magnitude in anticipation of the spring cleaning/home selling season. We show these trends below. Last, we do anticipate discount frequencies and magnitudes to decrease as the impacts of tariffs continue to work into product lines across all groups.

Product Group Trends: All five product groups — Appliances, Communication, Home Improvement, Personal Care, and Recreation — showed positive or neutral month-over-month price growth in March. 

• Appliance Group (+0.4%)
• Communication Group (+0.0%)
• Home Improvement Group (+0.0%)
• Personal Care Group (+0.0%)
• Recreation Group (TVs, speakers, and headphones) (+0.3%)

See the full breakdown of product groupings. 

CPI: Appliances

Prices for appliances grew by 0.4% on a month-over-month basis in March, accelerating from flat growth in the month prior to the largest monthly price growth since December 2022. The discount frequency on appliances decreased by nearly a full percentage point, from 39.8% in February to 39.1% in March, but has been relatively stable at between 38% and 43% since May 2024. However, the magnitude of such discounts increased over the month to 17.1% from 16.2% the month prior, and has remained in the low-to-mid teens since the onset of the pandemic. 

What’s more, we find that specific categories of appliances have seen faster price growth acceleration than others. The three largest swings between February and March have been across laundry equipment and refrigerators, which have each seen a 120 basis point increase in their growth rates (laundry from 0.4% in February to 1.6% in March, refrigerators from -0.2% in February to 1.0% in March).

Other sharp movers include dishwashers and microwave ovens accelerating by 100 basis points (dishwashers from -0.2% to 0.8% and microwaves from 0.6% to 1.6%), cook tops and wall ovens moving 60 basis points (from 0.0% to 0.6%), and kitchen ranges moving 40 basis points (from 0.0% to 0.4%).

CPI: Communication

 Prices of communication devices, including phones, tablets, computers, and printers, were flat on a month-over-month basis. This is the ninth consecutive month where monthly price growth was either flat or positive. The frequency of discounts increased slightly over the month from 7.2% in February to 7.9% in March, but both months were down by about half since May 2024, when they ranged from about 12.0% to 14.5%. The magnitude of discounts increased by 60 basis points, from 22.4% in February to 23.0% in March, being the largest since July 2023. This comes on the heels of new product announcements from Apple last month.

CPI: Home Improvement

The index for home-related durable goods was flat in March on a month-over-month basis, breaking 29 consecutive month-over-month increases and down from last month’s revised increase of 0.2%. The frequency of discounts was 12.4% of products in March, up sharply from 9.4% in February as retailers prepare for what they hope to be a competitive but busy Spring cleaning and home buying season. In addition to the increase in the share of products with a discount, the magnitude of discounts also increased month-over-month, growing from 17.2% in February to 18.2% in March. 

CPI: Personal Care

Prices of personal care products were flat on a monthly basis in March 2025, ending three consecutive monthly price increases and down from a revised 1% in January and 0.2% in February. Some of this decrease may be due to a slight increase in the incidence and magnitude of price discounts, with the share of discounted personal care products increasing from a revised 22.8% in January and 22.9% in February to 23.2% in March and the average discount magnitude growing from 20.4% to 20.8% over the same period.

CPI: Recreation

Prices of recreational products, including TVs, headphones, and speaker systems, increased by 0.3% on a month-over-month basis, matching February’s revised number but down from January’s revised 1.9%. This is the eighth increase over the past nine months. While the frequency of discounts increased to 18.3% in March from 17.5% in February. The average magnitude of discounts increased slightly from 23.9% in January to 24.2% in March.

The global economy faces the possibility of strong turbulence in the wake of the United States’ new implementation of broad, and tactically deep, tariffs. On April 2, President Trump announced a 10% universal tariff on all imported goods, effective April 5, with higher “reciprocal tariffs” targeting specific countries: 34% for China, 20% for the European Union, and 24% for Japan. Additionally, a 25% tariff on foreign automobiles began on April 3. ​

The Trump administration asserts that these measures aim to revitalize U.S. manufacturing, reduce the trade deficit, and lower national debt. However, economists and international partners have expressed concerns about potential disruptions to global trade, increased inflation, and economic slowdowns. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) forecasts a deceleration in U.S. economic growth to 2.2% in 2025 and 1.6% in 2026, but questions about the net effect on U.S. consumers remain to be seen. This is because there have been discussions within the Trump administration on explicitly reducing or eliminating federal income taxes and/or providing supplementary tax benefits to offset the potential increase in the cost of consumer goods due to such tariffs. 

Internationally, the tariffs have shown signs of straining relations with key U.S. allies and trading partners. The European Union and Canada have pledged retaliatory measures, potentially further escalating trade tensions with our closest trading partners. These developments have led to recent volatility in global markets and at least short-run declining consumer confidence, with the possibility of retaliatory measures extending beyond the economic sphere.

In summary, the introduction of these tariffs in April 2025 has introduced significant uncertainty into the global economic landscape, with potential implications for growth, inflation, and international trade relations.

Join me for an OpenBrand webinar on Tax Day, April 15, where I will discuss all things inflation and tariffs. You can register for the webinar here.

Note: This summary is based on data available as of early April 2025 and may be subject to revisions in future releases.

The OpenBrand CPI of Durable and Personal Goods is constructed using a data-driven methodology that ensures accuracy, timeliness, and transparency in measuring price trends for both short and long-lasting consumer products. The methodology consists of the following key components:

1. Data Collection

• Real-Time Price Tracking: Prices are sourced daily from online marketplaces, retail websites, and brick-and-mortar store listings.
• Retailer & Manufacturer Data: Aggregates pricing information from major retailers, direct-to-consumer brands, and wholesale suppliers into broader consumer categories.
• Temporal Coverage: Captures price variations over time, including daily discounts and price promotions

2. Product Selection & Tracking

• Durable and Personal Goods Focus: The index includes products with an expected lifespan of three years or more, such as home appliances, consumer electronics, and tools, as well as personal care products with a shorter lifespan, such as hair and skin care products, vitamins, over-the-counter medications, and oral care products. 
• Brand & Model Tracking: Individual brands and models are monitored to reflect pricing shifts within competitive product segments, including both permanent changes in listing price as well as temporary promotional pricing.

3. Price Calculation, Adjustments, and Weighting

• Price Calculation: Tracks month-over-month and year-over-year price movements to measure price stability in the marketplace and take into account both longer-term changes in pricing (such as changes in manufacturer’s suggested retail price) as well as more short-term changes in pricing, such as promotional discounts and sales prices. 
• SKU-Removal Instead of Hedonic Adjustments: When a product (or SKU) becomes unavailable in the BLS goods basket, the BLS implements a SKU-replacement procedure whereby the next most similar product is used in its place, and a quality (hedonic) adjustment procedure is performed to get closer to an apples-to-apples price comparison. Since OpenBrand has data on nearly 100% of the SKUs pricing history in a given product category, we can simply remove that SKU from the basket and rely on price changes of the remaining SKUs in that basket. This eliminates the need for hedonic adjustment in the OpenBrand CPI basket.
• Weighting and Aggregation Method: A weighted geometric mean formula is used to minimize volatility and improve stability in price trend analysis at both the product grouping and category level. Instead of using sales-volume weights when aggregating the index, we take an alternative approach by using persistence-based weights for aggregation. Instead of more frequently purchased items getting more weight in the BLS’ CPI calculation, OpenBrand takes a more novel approach by weighting items with a more established price history in the market more heavily in our CPI calculation than items with a less established history.

4. Reporting & Updates

• High-Frequency Updates: Published freely on a monthly basis, with a subscription option for daily summaries across categories, sub-categories, and individual products.
• Comparative Benchmarks: We aggregate pricing as analogously as possible to traditional BLS CPI measures for benchmarking purposes.
• Transparency & Accessibility: Provides both open and paid data access for journalists, researchers, businesses, and policymakers.

By leveraging real-time data and advanced statistical techniques, the OpenBrand CPI offers an accurate and dynamic measure of pricing trends, helping businesses and consumers make informed decisions in an evolving economic landscape.