Open-Box Price Index — August 2026: Every Category Got Deeper
OpenBoxFox Team
Author
This is the August 2026 edition, archived for reference. See the current Price Index for the latest numbers.
The average open-box discount in the US is now 27% off list price (median 24%), up from 25% in July, across 622,031 live in-stock listings — every single category we track got deeper, not just one or two. This is the second monthly OpenBoxFox Price Index, computed from our entire live database. New edition on the first week of every month.
Headline numbers — August 2026
- 622,031 in-stock US open-box & refurbished listings with verified pricing
- 27% average discount off list price (median 24%), up from 25%/21% in July
- $27 average dollar savings per listing, up from $23
- Canada: 49,162 in-stock listings averaging 37% off — still well ahead of the US, and up another point from July's 36%
- Open box vs refurbished: open-box/used listings (602K items, avg price ~$49) average 27% off; certified refurbished (20K items, avg price ~$424) averages 31% off — the deeper-cuts-on-pricier-goods pattern from July held
Average discount by category
Every top-level category with at least 500 qualifying listings, sorted by average discount:
| Category | Avg discount | Median price | Live listings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cell Phones & Accessories | 38% | $11 | 33,168 |
| Automotive | 30% | $37 | 71,508 |
| Clothing, Shoes & Jewelry | 29% | $28 | 120,747 |
| Electronics | 28% | $39 | 55,640 |
| CDs & Vinyl | 27% | $32 | 1,308 |
| Tools & Home Improvement | 27% | $34 | 62,720 |
| Video Games | 27% | $36 | 3,941 |
| Appliances | 26% | $31 | 3,065 |
| Industrial & Scientific | 26% | $24 | 11,484 |
| Office Products | 25% | $27 | 10,586 |
| Home & Kitchen | 25% | $25 | 134,016 |
| Arts, Crafts & Sewing | 25% | $15 | 8,404 |
| Sports & Outdoors | 25% | $32 | 30,968 |
| Musical Instruments | 24% | $62 | 3,678 |
| Health & Household | 24% | $21 | 8,534 |
| Pet Supplies | 24% | $24 | 8,137 |
| Patio, Lawn & Garden | 23% | $38 | 27,823 |
| Toys & Games | 22% | $18 | 16,565 |
| Beauty & Personal Care | 22% | $22 | 3,054 |
| Baby Products | 21% | $26 | 3,077 |
Month over month: every category got deeper
This is our first edition with a prior month to compare against, so here's the trend line: every category that appears in both July and August rose — none fell. The increase ranges from 1 to 3 percentage points, with Cell Phones & Accessories, Video Games, Sports & Outdoors, Health & Household, Patio/Lawn/Garden, and Arts/Crafts/Sewing tied for the biggest jump at +3 points. Cell Phones & Accessories held the top spot both months (35% → 38%).
The listing count dropped alongside it — 847,056 in July to 622,031 in August, almost entirely in the standard open-box/used segment (827K → 602K), while certified-refurbished held essentially flat (20,103 → 20,466). That's not inventory drying up: a stale-listing cleanup pass shipped between editions to prune sold-out and dead listings that had been accumulating, so this month's catalog is smaller but fresher. A broad-based discount increase on a cleaner dataset is a more trustworthy signal than the same increase mixed in with dead stock — worth tracking whether the trend holds in September.
Three things the August data says
- The July pattern held, and deepened. Cell phone accessories are still the discount king (38%, up from 35%) at a still-tiny median $11 — this segment is dominated by commodity cases and cables that get marked down hard. Electronics again post the highest per-listing dollar savings ($99 on average), because the items themselves are worth the most.
- Refurbished is still the best combined bet. 31% off on ~$424 average items, unchanged from July's ratio — refurbished continues to post the largest per-purchase savings of any segment in the data, on both a percentage and dollar basis.
- Canada's lead over the US is narrowing slightly, not because the US caught up — because both grew. The US gained 2 points (25%→27%) and Canada gained 1 (36%→37%), so Canada's edge shrank from 11 points to 10. Still the better market for open-box shoppers; still worth Canadian readers checking the CA catalog first.
Deal of the month
A MacBook Pro 16" (2021, Apple M1 Max, 32GB RAM, 4TB SSD) in certified-refurbished condition for $1,659 against a $4,899 original list — 66% off, $3,240 saved — via Reebelo.com, and the biggest single dollar-savings deal we found this month. One unit; deals like this typically don't last more than a day or two.
Methodology
The Index is computed from the OpenBoxFox database — our continuous aggregation of open-box and refurbished listings from Amazon US & Canada, Reebelo, Newegg, and other partner retailers. This edition is a snapshot taken August 7, 2026, covering in-stock US listings only (Canada reported separately). We exclude listings with implausible pricing data (discounts above 90% or savings exceeding 9× the sale price) so the averages reflect deals a real shopper would see; a small number of flagged listings with corrupted list prices are also corrected before publication rather than simply hidden. "List price" is the manufacturer's or seller's stated original price; "discount" is the current sale price versus that list. Category assignment follows each listing's primary category. The underlying category table is versioned and reproducible; media inquiries and data questions: contact us.
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