Retail Sales Slip in March
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Percent Change in Retail and Food Services Sales (Credit: The U.S. Census Bureau’s Advance Monthly Sales for Retail and Food Services, March 2016)
The Census Bureau reported on Wednesday that U.S. retail and food services sales for March (adjusted for seasonal variation, holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes) declined 0.3 percent from the previous month. Also, the January-to-February change was revised from down 0.1 percent to virtually unchanged. Even so, retail sales were still up by 1.7 percent compared with March 2015.
As usual, there were winning and losing categories among retailers, and month-over-month, there were more losers than winners. Clothing stores, for instance, suffered a 0.9 percent monthly sales dip in March, while food service and drinking places’ sales dropped 0.8 percent. Car sales—which have done well for quite a while—were off 2.1 percent for the month…
