Towards the end of 2023, electronics sales rebound. However, could this resurgence be short-lived? YoY electronic prices continue to fall.
Electronics sales haven’t been too great for 2023 despite electronic retailers relentlessly lowering online consumer prices.
“While consumer electronics sales had fallen for much of 2023, spending in the category trended upward in the back half of the year, with December sales rising 8.9% year over year to $10.8 billion,” Reports Daphne Howland and Caroline Jansen of Retail Dive.
The reason electronics sales have been so low throughout 2023 is believed to be that many consumers stocked up on electronic goods during the pandemic that they’d probably have purchased over the next few years.
According to Retail Dive, electronics suffered YoY (Year-on-Year) sales declines for much of 2023 and only began to break that trend in October and November.
The uptick in electronic sales doesn’t necessarily mean that the category has broken its decline. More likely, the rise in electronics sales was only temporary because of the holiday season.
As we move into 2024, electronics may return to its long-term trend of decline. In January 2023, electronic sales declined 6.5%, according to the same report by Retail Dive.
According to Statista data, online consumer electronics prices in the US have been declining for a long time, which may suggest an overall decline in consumer demand for electronics.
Between January 2017 and November 2023, the biggest YoY declines in online consumer electronics prices occurred in December 2019 at -12.83% and November 2022 at -13.36%.
Though this decline began to recede in 2020, for much of 2023, YoY prices are significantly lower than before the pandemic.
However, it is essential to factor in inflation. After hitting a high of 9.1% in June 2022, it has declined for much of 2023, dropping to 3.4% in December 2023, according to statistics from Statista.
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