Discussion Paper

Pricing Strategies of Regional Firms: Results From Our September 2026 Survey

Abstract: Since the COVID-19 pandemic, persistent unpredictability of input cost has pushed many firms to rethink how they price. In the last six years, the global pandemic, supply chain shortages, labor shortages, tariffs, and geopolitical conflicts have put upward pressure on the costs firms are facing. In some cases, the combination of steady demand and technological improvement has allowed firms to increase the prices they charge their customers with less resistance — a phenomenon most obvious during the high inflation of 2021 and 2022. More recently, we found that customer resistance and fear of losing market share have prevented many firms from increasing prices as much as they would like. To better understand how businesses are thinking about their current prices, we asked firms in our September business survey a series of questions about their pricing strategies. We found that respondents are adjusting their prices more frequently than before the pandemic. Firms have also adopted pricing strategies, such as customer-specific pricing and inflation/index-based pricing to manage unpredictable input costs.

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond

Part of Series: Regional Matters

Publication Date: 2026-10-01