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The leveling off of e-commerce activity continues as online prices, as measured by the Adobe Digital Price Index, fell 2.3% in May from a year ago. This is the ninth consecutive year-over-year decrease in online prices, Adobe Inc. says.
Of the 18 categories tracked by Adobe, prices fell in 11 of them. The big decreases were in flowers and related gifts, with a 27.81% decrease, and computers, down 16.45%. Prices increased the most in pet products, up 10.19%, and grocery, up 8.21%.
Diving deeper, Adobe says online grocery prices, while up, have been slowing in the past eight months, having increased 9.3% in April year-over-year but down from the price-growth peak of 14.3% in September.
Consumers also dialed back spending in some discretionary-spending categories. The drop in online computer pricing reflects a 30% decrease in worldwide PC shipments in the first quarter. That data, from Gartner Inc., is because of oversupply and continued low PC demand. U.S. e-commerce sales increased 7.8% in the first quarter from the 2022 first quarter, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released in May.
In related news, Stripe Inc., an e-commerce payment processor that also offers in-store payment acceptance, joined the MACH Alliance, a trade group aimed at fostering open-technology adoption for enterprises.
