Consumer Price Index: Durable Goods | May 2026

In May, price growth for consumer durable goods remained nearly flat with a month-over-month (MoM) increase of +0.02%. This is down from a revised monthly +0.43% increase in April. Across our four product groups, three showed month-over-month deceleration, with recreation showing the only price growth uptick. May showcased Memorial Day Weekend promotions, which helped contribute to the month-over-month flatness.

Memorial Day continues to be an important promotional event for the durable goods sector, but the nature of this promotion has evolved considerably. In 2026, discount activity rebounded sharply compared to recent years, with a discount frequency of 29.9% during Memorial Day Weekend compared with 24.2% during the remainder of May. Memorial Day Weekend 2026 saw the most aggressive promotional activity since 2022, with both the highest discount frequency and the widest gap between Memorial Day Weekend promotional activity relative to the rest of May.

Promotions across the Home Improvement and Communication groups were notably aggressive in May 2026. Memorial Day Weekend 2026 saw retailers lean heavily on promotions across several durable goods categories, though discount activity varied significantly by sector. Home Improvement discount frequency increased sharply, climbing from 13.4% to 20.3%. Within the Home Improvement sector, Door Locks, Kitchen Faucets, and Log Splitters in particular saw a dramatic increase in discount frequency. Discount frequency jumped to some of the highest levels observed during the past two years notably for Kitchen Faucets and Log Splitters.

Communications products saw one of the largest promotional increases in May 2026, with discount frequency rising to 26.3% over Memorial Day Weekend from 16% in the rest of the month. More broadly, smartphones, wearables, and printers all posted notable gains in discount frequency. For wearables, the May 2026 increase in promotional activity was driven by broader promotional coverage from major brands, as well as inventory-clearing efforts ahead of upcoming product launches. Looking ahead, the growing availability of affordable, feature-rich devices could keep promotional pressure elevated as brands compete to defend market share.

For smartphones, the May 2026 increase in promotional activity reflected stronger year-over-year incentives from major brands along with broader discounting across product lines, plus aggressive carrier-led launch offers. Smartphones, in particular, stood out not only in May 2026 but also at the end of 2025.

• Key CPI Takeaways for May 2026 & Macroeconomic Outlook
• Product Group Highlights
  • Appliances
  • Communication
  • Home Improvement
  • Recreation
• CPI 2026 Forecast: Macroeconomic Summary
• Methodology

Overall OpenBrand Consumer Price Index Movement: The OpenBrand CPI of Durable Goods recorded a +0.02% monthly change in May, notching the twenty-third consecutive month-over-month increase.  All product groups except Recreation experienced price declines this month.  

Discount Trends: May brought mixed changes in discount activity to the durable goods sector, with magnitude month-over-month rising to 19.9% of all durable goods from 19.8% in the month prior.  The typical frequency decreased to 24.3%, down from 25.7% the month prior. 

Product Group Price Trends:  All product groups experienced a slowdown in the rate of growth from the month prior, with prices of all groups except Recreation declining month-over-month.  The group summary is as follows:

• Appliance Group (-0.04%)  
• Communication Group (-0.35%)  
• Home Improvement Group (-0.33%)  
• Recreation Group (+0.33%) 

CPI: Appliances

Prices for appliances decreased on a month-over-month basis in May to -0.04%, falling from a revised +0.11% in the month prior. The frequency and magnitude of discounts both fell in May. Frequency decreased more than 3 percentage points from 40.9% to 37.8%, while magnitude fell slightly from 17.4% to 17.3% from April to May. The decrease in both frequency and magnitude of discounts would lead us to expect an increase in prices, however, since prices of appliances decreased in May, it could be that shelf prices were set higher.

CPI: Communication

Prices of communication devices, including phones, tablets, computers, and printers, fell on a month-over-month basis to -0.35%, down from a revised +0.44% the month prior. Both discount frequency and discount magnitude increased this month, from 15.8% to 16.0%, and 20.1% to 20.5% respectively. The deceleration in price growth was at least partially driven by the increase in both frequency & magnitude of discounts.

CPI: Home Improvement

Prices for home improvement goods experienced a deceleration in growth this month, decreasing to -0.33% on a month-over-month seasonally-adjusted basis in May, falling from a revised +0.11% in the month prior, showing the first monthly decrease in the last 26 months. The deceleration in price growth was at least partially driven by the increase in the typical discount frequency.

CPI: Recreation

The rate of price growth of recreational products, including TVs, headphones, and speaker systems, experienced deceleration this month, decreasing to +0.33% on a month-over-month seasonally-adjusted basis in May, down from a revised +0.89% in April. The deceleration in prices was at least partially driven by the increase in the typical discount magnitude, up from 24.6% in April to 24.9% in May.

The macroeconomic backdrop heading into the second half of 2026 is layered, mixed bag for the durable goods sector.

Energy costs remain above pre-conflict levels, even as Brent Crude fell in May following a late-April peak tied to the ongoing Middle East conflict. The initial shock from the sharp run-up in oil prices that began in earnest in late February has not yet fully worked its way through the production and transportation pipeline, meaning the full drag on input costs for durable goods manufacturers is still materializing. That’s an important caveat for anyone interpreting the first quarter’s relative resilience as a signal of sustained strength.

Real GDP growth is expected to continue building on gains into the second quarter of 2026, though the picture is more complicated than the headline suggests. The Q1 rebound was supported in part by a normalization of government spending following the prior quarter’s shutdown. In other words, some of the improvement was a catch-up effect, not a reflection of organic momentum. Consumer spending and business investment held up, but the full weight of the energy price shock hasn’t landed yet. For durable goods categories, this creates a demand environment that is fragile at the edges, where discretionary and big-ticket purchases are particularly exposed as household budgets increasingly absorb elevated energy costs.

The interest rate environment offers little relief. The 10-year Treasury yield is expected to hold in the 4.25 – 4.30% range through the year-end, keeping long-term borrowing costs elevated. For housing-related durable goods, such as appliances, home improvement materials, and related categories, the combination of high financing costs and constrained affordability continues to cap demand potential. The 30-year mortgage rate reached 6.44% in May, and homebuilders are simultaneously contending with rising material costs tied to tariffs. That’s a double squeeze that shows no sign of easing meaningfully in the near term.

The labor market is not showing signs of collapse. Job growth increased for a third straight month in May with a surprising gain of 172,000, driving the three month total to well over 500,000. On the other hand, consumer sentiment fell by 14.2% from May 2025 to May 2026, and growth in Personal Consumer Expenditures softened in April. While falling consumer sentiment does not bode well for expectations of consumer durables consumption, these are not crisis signals: the link between consumer sentiment and consumer behaviors appears to have been diverging sharply over the past two years.

Retail Sales, however, continue to climb, with year-over-year growth reaching levels not seen since early 2023, but it’s worth noting that after controlling for inflation, the growth was nominally small. It tells us that even in an environment of cooling sentiment and rising caution, consumers are still spending, but they’re just being more selective about it.

The housing market continues to act as a structural constraint on housing-sensitive durable goods demand. Elevated mortgage rates have kept existing-home supply limited, as many current homeowners remain locked into sub-market rates they are understandably reluctant to give up. That inventory squeeze caps the pipeline of home sales that typically drive demand for appliances, flooring, fixtures, and related categories.

Looking ahead, the sector is caught between resilient underlying demand and a set of persistent, compounding headwinds. The most hopeful development is the recent easing in oil prices, but it’s worth keeping in perspective. Prices are still well above where they were before the current Middle East conflict began, and the impact of elevated energy costs is still rippling through supply chains. With housing affordability, labor market momentum, and borrowing costs all pointing in the same cautious direction, the operating environment for durable goods is likely to remain uneven in the second half of 2026. The consumer isn’t pulling back entirely, but they’re paying closer attention to every dollar spent.

Note: This summary is based on data available as of early June 2026 and may be subject to revisions in future releases. Special thanks to Lauren Finck and Scott Peterson for their contributions to this month’s report.

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 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:

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

Product Selection & Tracking

• Durable and Goods Focus: The index includes products with an expected lifespan of three years or more, such as home appliances, consumer electronics, and tools.
• 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.

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.

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.