Healthy retail spending resumed last month: NRF
By Alan Wolf, YSN
Riding a rebound in consumer spending, America’s furniture and home furnishings stores turned in one of their strongest performances of the year last month.
According to the CNBC/NRF Retail Monitor, a monthly tally of U.S. retail sales, October revenue at furniture and home furnishings stores rose 0.58% over the prior month seasonally adjusted, and increased 1.87% year over year unadjusted.
The monthly gain was the sharpest since April, when sales grew 1.67% from March but fell 3.28% from the prior-year period.
Concerns Quelled
The National Retail Federation (NRF), the report’s author, said retail sales rallied across the board in October as the economy remained in good shape and consumers moved past concerns about a port strike, geo-political tensions and other issues that slowed spending in September.
“Healthy spending resumed in October as consumers continued to benefit from this year’s job gains and higher wages,” said NRF president/CEO Matthew Shay. “Inflation is mostly limited to services at this point and prices for some retail goods are actually falling. October sales have set the stage for a good start to the holiday shopping season.”
Appliances Plateau
Total retail sales, excluding automobiles, gasoline and restaurants, were up 0.83% month over month seasonally adjusted and ahead 4.59% unadjusted year over year in October, the report showed. Online and other direct-sell channels were up 1.84% month over month seasonally adjusted and up 19.38% year over year unadjusted, while sales at appliance and electronics stores remained essentially flat.
The Retail Monitor is a monthly measure of retail sales created in collaboration with CNBC and the NRF and powered by Affinity Solutions. The reports leverage Affinity’s comprehensive data, which tracks nearly 9 billion transactions from more than 140 million credit and debit cards, representing over $500 billion dollars in annual spending.
The Retail Monitor has been shown to be highly correlated with the U.S. Census Bureau’s revised retail sales numbers.
