Falling Online Prices in June Drive Continued Ecommerce Growth

SAN JOSE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Shoppers continued to push U.S. online spending higher in June as ecommerce inflation improved even more dramatically than consumer prices overall, according to Ecommerce Pulse data from commerce protection provider Signifyd.

Shoppers continued to push U.S. online spending higher in June as ecommerce inflation improved even more dramatically than consumer prices overall, according to Ecommerce Pulse data from Signifyd.

Ecommerce sales were up 8% year-over-year with the grocery and general merchandise categories leading the way. The higher spending comes during a month when Signifyd’s Ecommerce Consumer Price Index dropped 1.14% compared to June 2023.

June also saw the most dramatic slowing of U.S. inflation overall in three years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, with the month-to-month inflation rate declining 0.1% and the Consumer Price Index rising only 3% year over year.

“While online prices historically have been deflationary, that hasn’t consistently been the case in recent years,” Signifyd Senior Data Analyst Phelim Killough said. “June’s overall lower ecommerce prices were driven primarily by dramatic decreases in high-priced categories like electronics and luxury goods and by high-volume categories, namely apparel and general merchandise.”

The general merchandise category consists of items sold online by retailers classified as department stores.

Taken together, lower online prices year over year and lower prices month to month across all retail in June is good news for inflation fighters.

It’s reasonable to assume that a decline in prices likely contributed to increased sales in general merchandise, which was up 30% year-over-year in June, and apparel, which increased 8% over a year ago.

Conversely, in the leisure and outdoor category, where prices increased nearly 4% year-over-year, sales dropped 2%.

Of course, many factors besides price alone help form a consumer’s decision to make a purchase and so the relationship between the Ecommerce Consumer Price Index and the change in sales in any given category is not always direct.

What is clear is that while inflation is often framed as a single number, there can be a wide variance in price movement depending on the retail category under consideration.

Methodology

Signifyd’s Ecommerce Pulse data is derived from transactions on Signifyd’s Commerce Network of thousands of ecommerce retailers and brands. Commerce Network intelligence also powers Signifyd’s Commerce Protection Platform, which leverages AI-driven machine learning models and data from millions of transactions to detect and block fraudulent activity while increasing the number of good orders approved. Signifyd has seen more than 600 million unique shopper wallets¹ globally, meaning that 98% of the time when a shopper comes to a Signifyd-protected site, Signifyd’s machine-learning models recognize the shopper instantly.

¹ A digital wallet is a distinct combination of signals present in an online transaction.