Online prices in January increased 2.7% compared with January 2021, according to the Adobe Digital Price Index.

January 2022 marks the 20th consecutive month of online price increases, and online prices in January increased 1.1% across the 18 categories Adobe tracks compared with just a month early in December 2021, according to Adobe.

In January 2022, online prices increased in 13 of the 18 categories Adobe tracks year over year. Notable, online grocery prices increased 5.8% year over year in January, which is the highest annual increase and marks two years of continued price inflation for the category, according to Adobe. This is even higher than October 2020, during a wave in COVID-19 cases, when online grocery prices jumped 5.2% year over year that month.

“January marks the 24th consecutive month where online prices have risen for groceries, making it the only category that has moved in lockstep with the Consumer Price Index, which captures prices consumers pay in physical stores,” Adobe reports.

“Consumers are still contending with elevated prices in the digital economy,” said Patrick Brown, vice president of growth marketing and insights at Adobe. “This is particularly notable in a category like groceries, where online prices continue to hit new records, while consumer demand for online grocery shopping remains heightened.”

Good prices matter to online shoppers when it comes to conversion, according to a Digital Commerce 360 and Bizrate Insights survey of 1,108 online shoppers in January 2022. 73% of consumers said the right price would likely lead them to purchase a product, the second most popular response after free shipping at 76%. Consumers could pick more than one response.

Adobe uses the Fisher Price Index to track ecommerce prices, as well as its data based on 1 trillion visits to retail sites and over 100 million SKUs in 18 product categories.