Safety & Survival: pricing & assortment benchmark, 2020–2026
Based on 2,002 Safety & Survival storefronts tracked from June 2020, of which 622 were still trading in July 2026.
What a typical safety & survival merchant looks like
| June 2020 | July 2026 | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median product price | $83.38 | $100.21 | +20.2% |
| Median catalogue size | 112 SKUs | 151 SKUs | +34.8% |
| Still trading | — | 31.1% of the 2020 cohort | 68.9% attrition |
All figures are measured on the same 622 stores in both periods, so none of the movement is caused by merchants entering or leaving the market.
Where Safety & Survival sits against the wider market
| Safety & Survival | All DTC | |
|---|---|---|
| Price change | +20.2% | +20.1% |
| Assortment change | +34.8% | +34.7% |
| Survival rate | 31.1% | 25.7% |
Prices rose in line with the market, and survival ran above it — Safety & Survival ranks 11th of 31 for survival among categories with a defensible sample.
US CPI-U rose 29.5% over the same span, so a +20.2% move is a real-terms cut of roughly 7%.
Price positioning
Safety & Survival is 8th 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 $100.21 is above this category's median; the assortment benchmark is 151 products.
Using these benchmarks
- Pricing. $100.21 is the mid-2026 category median. Position deliberately relative to it rather than by accident.
- Assortment. 151 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. +20.2% 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 Safety & Survival, and what is dead weight in your catalogue. $149, delivered in 48 hours.
Method & limitations
Matched cohort of Safety & Survival 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 safety & survival 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.