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.