State of Ecommerce Pricing 2026

Last updated September 25, 2026

Costs went up, and small online retailers are passing more of them on to customers. But price increases don't stick as well as planned, discounting is getting deeper, and about a fifth of online sales still come back as returns. This report pulls the most recent public data on each of those into one place, with every figure linked to its source.

Key Numbers

1. Costs Are Rising, and Tariffs Are a Big Part of It

The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston surveyed 500 to 600 small and medium-sized businesses in each of four waves between December 2024 and August 2025. Among firms whose costs were hit by the new tariffs, the average tariff rate they paid nearly doubled, from 6.5% in January 2025 to 11.4% in July 2025. In August, firms expected to pass about half of their cost increases into their prices over the following 12 months. How long they expected tariffs to last mattered a lot: firms expecting tariffs to stick around for a year or more planned pass-through of up to 70%, compared with under 20% for those expecting them to be short-lived.

2. Small Businesses Are Raising Prices at a Pace Not Seen Since Early 2023

In NFIB's June 2026 survey, a net 38% of small business owners raised their average selling prices (seasonally adjusted), up 2 points from May. That was the highest reading since January 2023. Before seasonal adjustment, 47% reported higher average prices and 7% reported lower ones. The share planning further increases fell, which suggests many owners had already made their move.

Online retailers specifically follow the same pattern. In a November 2025 survey of 170 U.S. SMB ecommerce owners by Omnisend, 54% said tariffs had forced significant changes. 39% raised retail prices, 29% switched suppliers and 19% cut the number of products they sell. Most of the increases were moderate:

Source: Omnisend, November 2025. Shares don't total 100% due to rounding.

In the same survey, if costs rose 10% overnight, 46% of these retailers said they would raise product prices, 16% would add or raise shipping fees and 16% would cut discounts.

3. Most Price Increases Don't Fully Stick

Deciding on a price increase is easier than keeping it. Simon-Kucher's Global Pricing Study 2025 surveyed more than 2,200 business leaders across 28 countries and 39 industries. It found companies realize less than half of their planned price increases on average. The rest leaks away through discounts, exceptions and lost volume. For a small store, the usual cause is raising prices across the board, including on products whose buyers are highly price-sensitive. More on that in why sales drop after a price increase.

4. Discounting Got Deeper

Over Black Friday/Cyber Week 2025, Adobe recorded peak discounts of 30.9% on electronics, 29.6% on toys and 25.1% on apparel. 7 of the 8 categories it tracks discounted more deeply than in 2024. Our discount depth by category page has the full breakdown. Deeper discounts on top of higher costs is exactly the combination that squeezes margin from both sides.

Online prices had been falling for a while before this. The last public release of the AdobeDigital Price Index, for October 2024, showed online prices down 2.9% year over year, the 26th straight month of annual declines. Apparel was down 9.9%, toys 4.4% and computers 3.8%, while electronics rose 0.3%. It's the most recent public release of the index we could find, so treat it as background rather than a current reading.

5. Returns Still Take a Fifth of Online Sales

The NRF & Happy Returns estimate that 19.3% of U.S. online sales will be returned in 2025, against 15.8% for retail overall, or $849.9 billion in merchandise. 82% of consumers call free returns a major factor when deciding to buy, and 9% of all returns are fraudulent. Return rates vary widely by category, from single digits in beauty to 30% and more in apparel. See return rate by product category.

What This Means for Your Store

Put the five findings together and you get the 2026 pricing problem for a small online store. Costs are up, competitors are raising prices too, and shoppers still expect deep sale discounts and free returns. A flat increase across your whole catalog is the easiest move, and it's also the one most likely to fall into the “less than half realized” bucket. Raising prices on products whose demand barely reacts to price, while holding prices on the sensitive ones, keeps more of the increase. Should you raise prices to cover rising costs? walks through that decision, and Zorin measures each product's price sensitivity from your own Shopify or WooCommerce sales history, so you know which products can take an increase.

Sources

• NFIB, Small Business Economic Trends, June 2026
• Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Who Will Pay for Tariffs? Businesses' Expectations about Costs and Prices
• Omnisend, 54% of Online Retailers Impacted by Tariffs; 39% Hiked Prices
• Simon-Kucher, Global Pricing Study 2025
• Adobe, Adobe Digital Price Index, October 2024
• Adobe, Adobe Holiday Shopping Season 2025 Report
• NRF & Happy Returns, 2025 Retail Returns Landscape

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