Washington: After a weak September performance, October sales increased year over year in seven of the nine retail channels.
The CNBC/NRF Retail Monitor shows that furniture and home furnishings stores were up 1.87% year over year unadjusted and up 0.58% month over month seasonally adjusted.
Affinity Solutions compiles anonymized credit and debit card purchase data for the Retail Monitor, which compares it to survey-based figures gathered by the Census Bureau for the Department of Commerce’s monthly report.
Underperforming the whole retail sector was the home and furnishings shop section, which has been having a difficult year.
According to the Retail Monitor computation, core retail sales in October increased 0.83% month over month and 4.59% year over year (excluding restaurants, auto dealers, and petrol stations). This was in contrast to September, when it decreased by 0.28% month over month and increased by 0.94% year over year.
Details from other important sectors consist of:
- Seasonally adjusted, online and other non-store sales increased by 1.84% month over month, while unadjusted sales increased by 19.38% year over year.
- Stores selling apparel and accessories saw a 0.57% monthly decline when seasonally adjusted, but an 8.56% annual increase when unadjusted.
- Retail sales of health and personal care products increased 8.35% year over year without adjustments and 1.45% month over month with season adjustments.
- Stores of general merchandise had a 0.05% monthly increase in seasonally adjusted sales and a 5.51% annual increase in unadjusted sales.
- Unadjusted, grocery and beverage stores increased 3.76% year over year and 0.87% month over month when seasonally adjusted.
- Stores that sell building and gardening supplies saw increases of 3.12% year over year when unadjusted and 1.69% month over month when seasonally adjusted.
- Stores selling electronics and appliances saw a 0.81% monthly decline when seasonally adjusted, and a 0.64% year-over-year decline when unadjusted.
- Book, hobby, music, and sporting goods stores saw a 2.7% monthly increase in seasonally adjusted sales, but a 1.23% year-over-year decline in unadjusted sales.
The year-over-year growth in core sales was the biggest since August 2023 at 4.76%, while the year-over-year increase in total sales was the biggest since November 2023 at 4.24%. For the first ten months of 2024, core sales increased by 2.42% and total sales increased by 2.13% year over year.
According to NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay, “healthy spending resumed in October as consumers continued to benefit from this year’s job gains and higher wages.” “At this time, the majority of inflation is restricted to services, and the cost of some retail goods is actually declining. The holiday shopping season is off to a strong start thanks to October sales.
