Key Points
- As shoppers await price cuts, retailers like Home Depot say their prices have stabilized and some national consumer brands have paused price increases or announced more modest ones.
- Yet some industry watchers predict deflation for food at home later this year.
- Falling prices could bring new challenges for retailers, such as pressure to drive more volume or look for ways to cover fixed costs, such as higher employee wages.
Most of economics assumes perfectly rational actors capable of making these delayed purchases. It’s a bit reductive for sure, and hard to say how much the real world maps to the theory, but the logic works assuming those caveats.