Ralph McLaughlin

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.

Overall Index Movement:

The OpenBrand CPI of Durable and Personal Goods recorded a 0.1% monthly change in February, notching the third consecutive month-over-month increase in prices and the fourth of the last five as retailers grapple with newly imposed tariffs on China and possible tariffs on Canada and Mexico. The magnitude of price change, however, was much smaller than last month’s increase of 0.6%, and follows a six-month deflationary trend in the second half of 2024.

Given the implementation of a 10% tariff on goods imported from China in February and an additional 10% on goods imported as of March 3rd, we anticipate both our monthly and annual CPI growth rates across all groups to reaccelerate in next month’s release and throughout the remainder of the first half of 2025, though the increase in the growth rate will likely be less than initially expected early last week as President Trump delayed yet again the implementation of 25% tariffs on most Canadian and Mexican imports.

Discount Trends: The falling trend in both the frequency and magnitude of reseller’s discounts have at least in part contributed to the recent three-month streak of positive price appreciation. This is likely due to the initial 10% tariff applied to China in February, and given the additional 10% applied on March 3rd, we should expect a decreasing trend in the frequency and magnitude of discounts in next month’s release. Between these two months, the share of products with discounts decreased by 130 basis points, from 22.6% of products in January to 21.3% in February. This is the third consecutive month of month-over-month decreases that began in November when 27.0% of product offerings came with a discount. Over the same period, the typical discount size has remained relatively stable at between 17.8% and 18.6%.

Annual Trends: Year-over-year, durable and personal goods prices were essentially flat, showing a small decrease of 0.1%. This is the tenth consecutive month of negative year-over-year price growth that reflects a lower rate environment compared to the same time last year. However, it is the smallest decline during this stretch, where annual declines of 0.7%to 0.9% have been the norm. This is down from a revised annual decline of 0.3% in January.

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

• Appliance Group (+0.0%)
• Communication Group (+0.0%)
• Home Improvement Group (+0.6%)
• Personal Care Group (+0.3%)
• Recreation Group (TVs, speakers, and headphones) (+0.2%)

See the full breakdown of product groupings. 

CPI: Appliances

Prices for appliances were on a month-over-month basis in February. This ends a two-consecutive month gain of nearly 1%. The discount frequency on appliances decreased slightly from 42.2% in January to 39.9% in February, but has been relatively stable at between 38% and 43% since May 2024. The magnitude of such discounts remained unchanged over the month at 16.2%, 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, were also 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 6.6% in January to 7.1% in February, 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 ticked down just a hair, from 22.4% in January to 22.3% in February, though both months are discount highs not seen since April 2024.

CPI: Home Improvement

The index for home-related durable goods moved up 0.6% on a month-over-month basis, the 29th consecutive month-over-month increase and down just slightly from last month’s revised increase of 0.8%. The frequency of discounts was 8.2% of products in February, down from 11.0% in January. In addition to the drop in the share of products with a discount, the magnitude of discounts also declined month-over-month, falling from 18.4% in January to 17.1% in February.  

CPI: Personal Care

Prices of personal care products moved up by 0.3% on a monthly basis in February 2025, the third consecutive monthly increase and up from a revised 1.4% in January and 0.7% in December. Some of this increase may be due to a monthly decrease in the incidence and magnitude of price discounts, with the share of discounted personal care products falling from a revised 26.8% in December and 23.9% in January to 22.9% in February and the average discount magnitude falling from 23.1% to 20.6% over the same period.

CPI: Recreation

 Prices of recreational products, including TVs, headphones, and speaker systems, moved by 0.2% on a month-over-month basis, down from January’s revised and relatively large increase of 1.8%. This is the seventh increase over the past eight months. While the frequency of discounts increased to 17.9% in February from 16.7% in January, both of these months show the lowest rate of product discounts since just after the pandemic started in early 2020. The average magnitude of discounts also dropped to lowest level since 2020, falling from 24.4% in January to 23.3% in February. 

As of March 2025, the global economic landscape presents a complex interplay of legacy resilience and emerging challenges. In the United States, the economy has shown unexpected strength over the past several months, with robust consumer spending and a tight labor market helping contribute to growth. However, recent data indicating weaker-than-expected figures in consumption, a stagnant housing market, and an emerging trade war are raising concerns about potential risks to sustained economic expansion in the U.S. and abroad. 

Impact of Tariffs on CPI

Global trade dynamics are undergoing significant shifts, particularly with the implementation of new U.S. tariffs. Last, the United States has threatened to implement tariffs of 25% on goods from Canada and Mexico and implemented an additional 10% on imports from China on March 4. These measures are expected to put upward pressure on inflation and add layers of complexity to international economic relations and domestic consumer sentiment, with additional implications for expected economic growth throughout the rest of the year.

How will these tariffs affect prices of consumer durable and personal goods? The simple answer is that it depends. For products imported from these countries with small margins, the impact to pricing is likely to be close to the full value of the tariff as retailers have little room to absorb it into their already small margins. For products with large margins, retailers have the liberty to choose how much of the cost of the tariff should be passed on to consumers. If the expected tenure of the tariffs is short, sellers of such high margin products may choose to simply absorb the entire cost of the tariff and wait until the tariff passes. On the other hand, resellers with smaller margins won’t have this luxury and may be forced to raise prices soon. 

The Federal Reserve, acknowledging these mixed signals, maintains a “moderately restrictive” monetary policy stance, keeping the federal funds rate in the range of 4.25% to 4.50%. This approach aims to balance the need to support growth while ensuring inflation continues its downward trajectory toward the 2% inflation target. After the tariff announcements last week and equity market turmoil that ensued, markets are now pricing three 25 basis point rate cuts by the end of the year. 

In Europe, the economic outlook is more subdued. The European Central Bank (ECB) is anticipated to cut interest rates in its upcoming meeting. However, there are concerns that further easing could inadvertently lead to economic stimulus before inflation is fully controlled. This uncertainty is exacerbated by unpredictable geopolitical events, including potential U.S. tariffs and a complex and evolving situation in Ukraine. 

Financial markets reflect a cautious sentiment amid these developments. Investor anxiety is evident, with the Cboe’s Volatility Index (VIX) rising by nearly 33% from the middle to the end of February. As of this week, both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite indices are down year-to-date.

Overall, the global economy in March 2025 is navigating a path marked by resilience in certain sectors and regions, counterbalanced by emerging risks and uncertainties. Policymakers and investors alike are urged to remain vigilant, adapting strategies to the evolving economic landscape as legacy influences give way to more contemporary drivers.

Note: This summary is based on data available as of early March 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.

Overall Index Movement: The OpenBrand CPI of Durable and Personal Goods recorded a 0.6% change in January, reflecting inflationary pressures in the market in anticipation of President Trump’s promise of tariffs on Canada, China, and Mexico. Although tariffs on Canada and Mexico have been postponed until early March, this is the second consecutive month of price increases and third of the past four months following a six-month deflationary trend in the second half of 2024.

Annual Trends: Year-over-year, durable and personal goods prices have decreased by 1.4%, indicating a broader downward trend in prices that reflects a lower rate environment compared to the same time last year. For perspective, the effective federal funds rate (EFFR) at the end of January 2025 was a full 100 basis points lower than the same period last year, suggesting that both consumers and wholesalers using debt to purchase goods have benefited from a lower rate environment.

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

• Recreation Group – which includes TVs, speakers, and headphones (+2.8%)
• Personal Care products (+1.1%)
• Home Improvement (0.6%)
• Appliances and Communication products (+0.4%).

See the full breakdown of product groupings. 

Macroeconomic Summary: The broader U.S. economy remains healthy, with labor markets staying relatively tight at an unemployment rate of 4.1% and consumer spending up 0.7% in December. While the recent threats of tariff implementations pose potential inflationary risks to the economy, currency markets have priced most, if not all, of the expected increase in wholesale prices due to such tariffs over the past four months. It’s also important to note tariffs are typically applied to wholesale — not retail — prices. In both cases, we should expect the potential impacts of such tariffs on retail pricing, if or when they are implemented, will likely be less than the face value of the tariffs themselves. 

CPI: Appliances

Prices for appliances increased by 0.4% on a month-over-month basis in January, representing the second consecutive month of month-over-month gains with a cumulative price growth of nearly 1%. Though the magnitude of discounts on appliances has remained relatively stable over the past year at around 18%, the frequency of discounts has fallen slightly over the past month from 43.2% in December to 42.6%.

CPI: Communication

Prices of communication devices, including phones, tablets, computers, and printers, increased by 0.4% on a month-over-month basis. This is the fifth consecutive monthly increase, reflecting a counter-trend in the communications sector of inflationary pressures not seen in other consumer segments. 

While the magnitude of discounts has increased slightly over the past few months – from 15.8% in May of last year to 18.6% in January 2025 – it was not enough to counter the sharp reduction in the frequency of discounts, with the share of retailers offering price discounts falling from 15% in August of last year to just 9.6% last month. 

CPI: Home Improvement

The index for home-related durable goods moved up 0.6% on a month-over-month basis, the 27th consecutive month-over-month increase. While pricing growth has been persistently positive over the past two years, the sector continues to see a discount incidence in the double digits with 10.8% of products discounted in the month of January. Though this is down from 12.9% in December and 11% in November, the magnitude of discounts has remained steady at about 18%.

CPI: Personal Care

Prices of personal care products moved up by 1.3% on a monthly basis in January 2025, the second consecutive monthly increase and up from 1.1% in December. Much of this increase is due to a monthly decrease in the incidence and magnitude of price discounts, with the share of personal care products with discounts falling from 29% in December to 23.4% in January, with the average discount magnitude falling from 22.7% to 21.4% over the same period.

CPI: Recreation

Prices of recreational products, including TVs, headphones, and speaker systems, moved up sharply by 2.8% on a month-over-month basis after a cumulative decline of nearly 1% in November (-0.2%) and December (-0.7%) 2024. Much of this increase is due to a monthly decrease in the incidence and magnitude of price discounts, with the share of recreation products with discounts falling from 23.2% in December to 17.7% in January, with the average discount magnitude falling from 26.7% to 24.6% over the same period.

As of February 2025, the U.S. economy exhibits a blend of robust growth and emerging challenges. On the upside, the U.S. economy continues to demonstrate resilience, with Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth projected to grow by 2.5% in 2025, driven primarily by strong consumer spending and productivity gains. While the labor market remains tight, the service sector experienced a slight slowdown in January but remains at robust levels to support consumer spending throughout the first half of 2025.

Impact of Tariffs on CPI

The recent threats of 25% tariff implementations on Mexico and Canada, and the actual 10% tariff implementation of China, pose potential inflationary risks to the economy. However, it’s important to note two facts when anticipating the impacts of such tariffs on pricing. 

First, free currency markets — notably currency exchanges for Canadian Dollars and Mexican Pesos — have trended downward in recent months, likely reflecting a market expectation that President Trump would implement tariffs on imports from both countries. For example, between September 2024 — when prediction markets began favoring a Trump victory in the U.S. election — and December 21 — a month before President-Elect Trump would take office — currency markets devalued the Canadian Dollar by 24.8%. Over a similar time period, the Mexican Peso fell by 11.3%. This means that nearly the entire 25% tariff on Canadian goods and nearly half of the Mexican tariff had been priced in by currency markets.

Second, it’s also important to consider that tariffs on most consumer goods entering the U.S. are predominantly on wholesale goods. This means that even without currency market adjustments, we shouldn’t expect the amount of such proposed tariffs would be passed on to the consumer. While it’s tough to know what the markups on Canadian and Mexican imported goods are to the consumer, let’s proceed with two scenarios whereby markups are either 50% or 100%. Let’s suppose importers purchase $100 worth of goods from Canada and/or Mexico and pay the 25% tariff – which equals $25. This means the total cost of the goods for the importer is $125 in each scenario. If they pass the entire tariff amount onto the consumer, this means the imported goods will cost the consumer $175 ($100 wholesale + $50 markup + $25 tariff) in the case of a 50% markup and $225 ($100 wholesale + $100 markup + $25 tariff) in the case of a 100% markup. In these cases, the actual price increase to the consumer would be 16.7% in the scenario where markups are 50%, and 12.5% in the case of 100% markup. 

When the first and second scenarios are combined, it seems reasonable to expect that the actual price increase to the consumer would be significantly less than the face value of the tariff. While we will be monitoring our pricing data intimately over the coming months to spot any observed price impacts of such tariffs, it’s possible the impact is small enough so as to be imperceptible in OpenBrand’s (and others’) pricing data.

While the U.S. economy is poised for continued growth in 2025, policymakers and business leaders remain vigilant regarding potential headwinds, including trade tensions and inflationary pressures. Ongoing monitoring of these factors will be crucial to sound economic positioning of retail businesses, policymakers, and the broader investment community. 

Note: This summary is based on data available as of early February 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.