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As consumers entered the holiday shopping season, retail sales in October rose 0.4% from the previous month to $718.9 billion, a year over year jump of 2.3%, the Commerce Department reported on Friday, an increase that slightly beat analyst expectations. Excluding motor vehicle and gasoline sales, retail sales rose 0.1% from last month and 3.8% from October 2023.
The Commerce Department last month reported September sales rose 0.4% month over month, but upwardly revised the increase to 0.8% this week.
“October sales were a good early step forward into the holiday shopping season, which is now fully underway,” National Retail Federation Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz said in a statement. “Falling energy prices have likely provided extra dollars for household spending on retail merchandise.”
Category close-up: Electronic and appliance stores saw the biggest monthly gain, with sales up 2.3% (perhaps due to the giant TV trend?). Food and beverage stores notched 0.1% monthly and 2.7% year over year growth, while general merchandise stores got a 0.2% monthly and 3.1% annual bump (though department store sales dipped 0.2% month over month and were flat from last year). Online retail sales also rose 0.3% from September and had the greatest annual gain of 7%.
Health and personal care stores (up 1.6% YoY) and sporting goods, hobby, musical instrument, and book stores (down 3.4% YoY) both saw monthly 1.1% sales dips. Clothing and clothing accessories stores dropped 0.2%, but were up 2.9% from last year. And after a banner September—when they got a 4% month over month boost—miscellaneous store retailers’ sales dropped 1.6%, but still had a 4% YoY boost.
Price to pay: Consumer prices, meanwhile, rose 0.2% month over month and 2.6% YoY, up from the 2.4% annual increase in September, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this week. National Economic Advisor Lael Brainard said in the statement that the return to near pre-pandemic levels of inflation was a “hard-fought recovery.”
Five of the six major grocery categories saw higher prices; the exception was meats, poultry, fish, and eggs dropping 1.2% (eggs fell 6.4%). Across other categories: prices for apparel and appliances fell, while footwear, furniture, and personal care products rose.