Friday, December 13, 2013

Retail Up in November, but Not Gift-Buying

The numbers for retail sales in November, which came out from the Commerce Department yesterday, looked impressively strong. Sales were up 0.7 percent over October, which was the biggest one-month gain since June.

Now, it might seem intuitive that retail sales were up in November because that marked the beginning of the holiday shopping season. But it turns out that gift-type sales - electronics stores, online retailers, clothing and department stores - were actually the weaker part of the month's reports. Those retailers were up 2.8 percent from the previous November, while total retail sales were up 4.7 percent.

The retail areas showing the most strength were things like car dealers, gas stations and restaurants. So it appears that the overall economy showed more strength than the gift-giving segment did.

No comments:

Post a Comment