Shop Smarter With the Consumer Reports Price Tracker

We're following the prices of 16 popular products, from Folgers coffee to a Ford F-150 pickup truck, to help you navigate today’s fast-changing marketplace

Consumer Reports Home & Tech Editor, Chris Raymond.

By Chris Raymond
Home & Tech Editor

Data visualizations by Evan O'Neil

Updated June 16, 2025

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A vacuum cleaner, coffee, a dishwasher, a stroller, a laptop, and a pickup truck with Red and green arrows, prices, and a trend line. — Hard-to-follow tariff news and other economic factors are making it difficult for shoppers to know whether they're getting a good price.

If all the talk of tariffs has you scratching your head, wondering about the potential impact on your household budget, you’re not alone. Lots of people in the U.S. are unsure of what to expect.

Retailers, including Walmart, have said they will have to raise prices to offset the added cost of importing goods. Others, including Home Depot, have vowed to hold steady, while acknowledging that this may require dropping certain product lines.

In this article

The Consumer Reports Price Tracker
Shopping Tips

To help you follow developments that may affect your family’s bottom line, we’ve been monitoring prices on 16 popular products—everything from a tub of ground coffee to laundry detergent, diapers, an infant car seat, and a popular pickup truck.

In the past week, four of the items have dipped in average price. The Shark vacuum we’re watching is now selling for $60 less than it was in early June, thanks to a dads-and-grads sales event. And the 65-inch TV from TCL dropped by $50. In total, that set has declined in price by $100 since mid-May. That kind of price drop isn’t uncommon for a model introduced earlier in the year. Overall, though, average TV prices are rising, according to market intelligence firm OpenBrand.

We’ve also started to see products becoming unavailable. When we checked on our Panasonic microwave on Friday morning, Walmart was showing a $34 price drop—but the product wasn’t actually available. It’s out of stock at Home Depot, too.

Similar things happened with other items. Home Depot has lowered the listed price of the portable generator we’re following from $1,035.99 to $1,015.97, but you can’t actually buy it. (For the record, ACME Tools has been selling the same model for $999 for five straight weeks now.)

Samantha Gordon, a shopping and deal-hunting expert here at CR, says that’s not unusual. She’s seen price cuts listed for out-of-stock items at other retail sites, too.

The Asus laptop was no longer available at Best Buy on Friday, and Amazon had lowered the price by $60 with just seven models left in stock. But the laptop is still available through the Asus website for $200 less. (We reached out to the manufacturer to ask about availability and that pricing gap but haven’t yet received a response.)

We’ll continue to track those shifts in price and availability each week to help you gauge where prices are really rising—or falling—and make better shopping decisions.

The full list is below, arranged by average price, along with data from the first four weeks of tracking. Below that, you’ll find our tips to help you shop smart in the days ahead. For more on the latest bargains, check CR’s Deals Hub.

Consumer Reports' Price Tracker

Shopping Tips

Here are a few things to keep in mind as you shop:

Don’t panic-shop. It’s easy to get caught up in the fear of rising prices, but don’t lose your cool and buy things you’ll later regret owning.

Don’t hold off on the items you already planned to purchase. If you’ve been gearing up to buy a new refrigerator, doing it now makes sense, especially if you have money budgeted for it and the price has remained steady. Big ticket items have larger margins than, say, a new coffee maker or blender, so companies may be more inclined to absorb the extra costs on those things in the short term.

Choose reliable products. Higher prices could persist, so choose products that are likely to serve you well over the long term. CR members can use our ratings to review the most and least reliable brands in many categories, including central air conditioning systems, dishwashers, dryers, heat pumps, refrigerators, vacuums, and washing machines.

Shop for older models. TVs, laptops, and smartphones that are a year or two old often remain available at stores after newer models arrive. You can buy a 2024 MacBook Air with an M3 processor for as little as $899, for example. It performs almost as well as the new M4 version of the laptop.

Consider a used or refurbished product. While this advice doesn’t work equally well for all product categories, you might find that purchasing a factory-refreshed or gently used appliance, laptop, or phone can save you money. Apple, Best Buy, LG, Samsung, and others certify the products they resell and even offer new warranties. Items sold on eBay typically do not.

Use CR for Smart Buys and up-to-the-minute deals. Consult our ratings for help finding products with a nice price and admirable performance. Apple and Samsung both sell well-made, budget-friendly phones, for example. (See the iPhone SE and the Galaxy A25 5G.) They’re much less expensive than flagship models but still do almost everything you want a modern smartphone to do.

Consumer Reports also has a devoted team of deal seekers who continually round up the best bargains on highly rated products. Find their picks at the CR deals hub.

Chris Raymond

Chris Raymond has been the deputy editor of the tech group at Consumer Reports since 2015, and has helped shape CR's product, service, and deals. When he isn’t producing stories about laptops and cell phones, he’s directing projects on digital privacy, the right to repair, and marketplace injustice. Before joining the staff, he worked at a number of magazines, ranging from Esquire to ESPN. Follow him on X: @CRay65.