WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Shoppers who buy their food online saw some relief at the checkout line in August, according to new numbers released Tuesday by Adobe's Digital Price Index.
Figures showed that online grocery prices fell 3.7% in August from July, marking the largest month-over-month decline since Adobe began tracking online prices in 2014.
It should be noted that online grocery prices are still up about 0.48% compared to August 2023, according to the index. However, this is a smaller year-over-year increase compared to July when food prices rose 4.2% compared to July 2023.
For comparison, groceries bought online hit a peak in September 2022 when costs rose by 14.3% year-over-year.
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A report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture showed that nearly 20% of U.S. shoppers bought groceries online in 2022.
What about other prices for online shoppers?
Some other takeaways from Tuesday's report showed a decrease in other goods bought online in the last year including computers, appliances, furniture and toys.
Year-over-year price reductions:
Computers: Down 9.67%
Appliances: Down 3.84%
Furniture & Bedding: Down 5.03%
Toys: Down 5.65%
However, the prices of medical equipment were up 1.40% in the last year along with a 1.76% increase of nonprescription drugs, the report said.
Overall, Adobe found that online prices have fallen for 24 consecutive months, down 4.4% year-over-year in August.
WPTV reporter Joel Lopez spoke to Dr. Bryan Cutsinger, an assistant professor of economics at Florida Atlantic University, about the report.
"I'm not all that surprised that we might actually see the prices responding more drastically on online retailers than we would in-store," Cutsinger said. "The reason is pretty straightforward. It's a lot easier for online retailers to change their prices because it's in digital format."
So, what about the grocery prices in stores?
"It depends on the item that you're looking at," Cutsinger said. "Bread for example might be falling, whereas meat might be rising and on average the two effects either might cancel each other out or the increase of the price of meat might be dwarfing the reduction in the cost of bread."
Cutsinger was optimistic that moves by the Federal Reserve are working to tame inflation.
"It seems to me that the Fed's recent moves to get inflation under control are taking root," Cutsinger said. "At the end of the day inflation occurs when total spending in the economy is growing too quickly so the Fed has taken steps over the past couple of years to slow total spending in the economy, and we're seeing this manifest in things like grocery store prices."
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