August 2026: what prices did across 1,988 products
We check prices at the US brand stores in this record once a day and keep what we saw. In August 2026 that came to 26,756 checks across 1,988 products. Here is what the month’s record says.
Prices went up more often than down
Of 136 price changes we recorded in August 2026, 91 were increases and 45 were decreases: 67% of all movement was upward. That is the opposite of what a shopper waiting for a sale assumes. When a price did fall, the typical fall was 20.0% — the median, so half of all drops were smaller than that.
Not every rise is a price increase: 22 of the 91 were prices going back up after a sale ended. The other 69 went above anything we had recorded for that product before.
The practical read: for most of these brands there is no discount coming to wait for. If a product is at a price you are willing to pay, waiting is more likely to cost you than to save you.
Who raised prices, and when
A price increase here means at least three products at one store, each checked for at least 30 days, went above every price we had recorded for them, within a day of each other. Prices coming back after a sale and rounding such as $29.95 to $30 do not count.
| Date | Brand | Products | Typical rise | Biggest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 20, 2026 | Rothy's | 6 | +15.7% | +51.3% |
| Aug 13, 2026 | Material | 4 | +8.6% | +25.0% |
| Aug 5, 2026 | Manduka | 4 | +24.6% | +25.3% |
Which brands actually moved
Brands with at least three recorded changes in August 2026. Depth is measured against the price we recorded ourselves on the previous check, not against a number the store crossed out.
| Brand | Drops | Rises | Typical drop | Deepest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hedley & Bennett | 9 | 9 | 26.2% | 30.8% |
| Our Place | 9 | 0 | 15.7% | 25.0% |
| Stasher | 7 | 8 | 30.8% | 51.3% |
| MOFT | 3 | 10 | 29.0% | 33.3% |
| Material | 3 | 5 | 10.5% | 16.9% |
| Glow Recipe | 3 | 4 | 25.8% | 47.5% |
| Nomatic | 2 | 5 | 7.8% | 12.5% |
| Saie | 1 | 13 | 2.9% | 2.9% |
| Rothy's | 1 | 11 | 14.0% | 14.0% |
| Manduka | 1 | 7 | 4.3% | 4.3% |
| The INKEY List | 0 | 16 | — | — |
Another 31 brands we watch did not change a single price in August 2026. For those, «does it ever go on sale» has an answer, and the answer is no — at least not in the window we have watched.
Against official inflation
The same products priced at the start and at the end of August 2026, next to the Consumer Price Index for the same month. Across all items, CPI moved +0.3%.
| Our category | Same products | Our change | CPI item | CPI change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clothing, shoes and accessories | 13 (0 up, 1 down) | Not published: under 100 products | Apparel | +1.9% |
| Beauty and personal care | 155 (28 up, 0 down) | +2.1% | Personal care products | +0.2% |
| Home | 222 (6 up, 16 down) | −1.2% | Household furnishings and supplies | 0.0% |
Our change: for every product priced in the last week before August 2026 began and again in its last week, the average (geometric) of end price over start price, as listed on the store’s product page — checkout discounts are not included. A category with fewer than 100 such products is not published: one discounted item would decide it. CPI: BLS CPI-U, U.S. city average, not seasonally adjusted, change from the previous month. Our sample is the direct-to-consumer brands we track, so a gap between the two columns describes these brands, not inflation as a whole.
Use this data
Licensed under CC BY 4.0: free to quote and republish with a link to this page. The brand table is available as CSV. Black Friday, measured the same way: Black Friday statistics.
Cite as: Avahit price report, August 2026, 1,988 products observed Aug 1, 2026 – Aug 31, 2026, https://avahit.com/price-report/2026-08.
Release dates and every figure we publish, with its limits, are on the page for journalists.
How this is measured
- Every product page is checked once a day. A check is recorded whether the price moved or not, so «never changed» is a result, not a gap.
- A change counts only against our own previous reading. Store-side «was» prices are not used anywhere on this site.
- Amazon products are excluded entirely: their license does not let anyone keep a price longer than 24 hours, so we have no history for them. What you see here is direct-to-consumer and specialist retailer stock.
- One calendar month is a short window: a sale season or a round of price increases can dominate it. Compare several months before calling anything a trend.
New checks do not change this page; they go into the live report. If a product is later removed from the catalog, its checks leave these figures too. The method behind our rankings is in how we pick and rank.