Lighting & Other Building Supply Commodity Prices Rise

The Producer Price Index (PPI) report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that while plywood prices have fallen, most other key hardware and building supply commodities have increased in price.

Light Fixtures: The price of light fixtures increased 2.9% in January 2025 compared to January 2024. From December 2024 to January 2025, light fixture prices increased 0.4%.

Plywood: The PPI index for plywood dropped 5.7% compared to the same month last year.

Other Commodities: Eight other key hardware and building supply commodities showed increases between 1% to 9.5%.

Softwood Lumber: Softwood lumber was the most volatile commodity on the list of 10 from December to January, experiencing a decrease of 4.7%, but a 12-month increase of 9.5%.

Eggs: The price of eggs for fresh use rose 186.4% unadjusted, compared to January 2024.

Overall Construction Input Prices: Overall construction input prices are 1.3% higher than a year ago, while nonresidential construction input prices are 0.7% higher.

Energy: Prices increased in all three energy subcategories last month. Crude petroleum prices increased 14.8%, while natural gas and unprocessed energy material prices increased 13.7% and 13.0%, respectively.

More information is available here.

All images: HBSDealer.com

David Shiller

David Shiller is the Publisher of LightNOW, and Senior Business Development Consultant at Capacity Consulting, a North American consulting firm providing business development services to advanced lighting manufacturers. The ALA awarded David the Pillar of the Industry Award. David has been co-chair of the ALA’s Engineering Committee since 2010. David established MaxLite’s OEM component sales into a multi-million dollar division. He invented GU24 lamps while leading ENERGY STAR lighting programs for the US EPA. David has been published in leading lighting publications, including LD+A, enLIGHTenment Magazine, LEDs Magazine, and more.

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