Internet: pricing & assortment benchmark, 2020–2026
Based on 657 Internet storefronts tracked from June 2020, of which 187 were still trading in July 2026.
What a typical internet merchant looks like
| June 2020 | July 2026 | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median product price | $148.17 | $158.13 | +6.7% |
| Median catalogue size | 38 SKUs | 45 SKUs | +18.4% |
| Still trading | — | 28.5% of the 2020 cohort | 71.5% attrition |
All figures are measured on the same 187 stores in both periods, so none of the movement is caused by merchants entering or leaving the market.
Where Internet sits against the wider market
| Internet | All DTC | |
|---|---|---|
| Price change | +6.7% | +20.1% |
| Assortment change | +18.4% | +34.7% |
| Survival rate | 28.5% | 25.7% |
Prices rose slower than the market, and survival ran above it — Internet ranks 14th of 31 for survival among categories with a defensible sample.
US CPI-U rose 29.5% over the same span, so a +6.7% move is a real-terms cut of roughly 18%.
Price positioning
Internet is 2nd of 31 by median product price.
| Band | Example categories | Median price 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Premium | Autos & Vehicles, Internet, Antiques & Collectibles… | $110.00 – $185.10 |
| Upper-mid | Safety & Survival, Science, Home & Garden… | $73.85 – $100.21 |
| Mid | Arts & Entertainment, Libraries & Museums, Finance… | $48.19 – $70.23 |
| Value | Holidays & Seasonal, Gifts & Special Events, Beauty & Fitness… | $33.06 – $47.99 |
| Entry | Toys & Hobbies, Smoking & Vaping, Books & Literature | $25.92 – $32.40 |
A merchant pricing above $158.13 is above this category's median; the assortment benchmark is 45 products.
Using these benchmarks
- Pricing. $158.13 is the mid-2026 category median. Position deliberately relative to it rather than by accident.
- Assortment. 45 products is typical. Well under that is narrow for the category; well over is broad. Neither is wrong — but it should be a decision.
- Planning. +6.7% over six years is the survivors' experience, not a forecast. Budget on it rather than assuming pricing power.
Want this for your own store?
The Pre-Holiday Benchmark Audit measures your storefront against these numbers — where your prices sit, whether your range is normal for Internet, and what is dead weight in your catalogue. $149, delivered in 48 hours.
Method & limitations
Matched cohort of Internet storefronts (Active, ≥10 products, known price and category) present in both June 2020 and July 2026. Medians throughout — price and catalogue distributions are heavily right-skewed and a mean describes no real store.
- Prices are modelled from storefront data, not observed transactions. Read them as relative movement, not absolute levels.
- Survivor-only. This answers what surviving internet merchants did, not what happened to everyone. Stores that failed appear in the survival rate and nowhere else.
- Unweighted — a $50M brand counts the same as a $50k one.
- Category is the merchant's primary classification; multi-category stores are counted once, and merchants who changed category over the period are excluded from these figures.
- Assortment counts listed products, not depth — a 500-SKU store may be one product in 500 variants.
Full methodology, including the composition-bias correction these figures depend on, is in the report's method section.