U.S. retail and food services sales dropped by 6.2 percent year over year in March, compared with February’s 4.6 percent year-over-year growth, according to an advance estimate by the U.S. Census Bureau. March’s sales represent an 8.7 percent drop from February 2020. Excluding automobiles/parts and gasoline, however, sales rose by 4.9 percent year over year, a slight improvement over February’s 4.3 percent year-over-year increase. Breaking it down, though, reveals a picture of vastly swinging fortunes.
Sales at food-and-beverage stores rose by 28 percent year over year in March, while sales at food-and-beverage service establishments dropped by 23 percent. Nonstore sales, including online sales from physical retailers and mail-order companies, rose by 9.7 percent, while sales at clothing stores dropped by 50.7 percent. And sales at general merchandise stores rose by 7.5 percent, while in the traditional and discount department store subset of that category, sales dropped by 23.9 percent.
“Taking out of the picture motor vehicles, gasoline and food-and-beverage services, the tremendous year-over-year growth in food-and-beverage stores in particular, combined with other ‘essential’ store categories, offset the phenomenal year-over-year decreases in apparel and other non-essential store categories,” said Jean Lambert, ICSC vice president of research.
Look back: U.S. Census Bureau’s advance estimates for February retail sales
By Amanda Metcalf
Editor in Chief, Commerce + Communities Today