Retail sales drop in October for first time in 7 months
Alex Mill chairman Millard Drexler has the latest on the retail market on 'The Claman Countdown.'
Americans hit the brakes on retail spending in October as they confronted still-high inflation and steep interest rates.
Retail sales, a measure of how much consumers spent on a number of everyday goods including cars, food and gasoline, fell 0.1% in October, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. That is above the 0.3% decline projected by Refinitiv economists but below the revised 0.9% gain recorded in September.
Excluding the more volatile measurements of gasoline and autos, sales climbed 0.1% last month.
The October advance is not adjusted for inflation, meaning that consumers may be spending the same but getting less bang for their buck.
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A shopper browses albums at a record store in Atlanta on Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2023. (Photo by Dustin Chambers/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
«The highly anticipated slowdown in retail spending has started, but it’s not drastic, and October’s numbers would seem pretty good if not stacked against September’s blockbuster report,» said Robert Frick, corporate economist at Navy Federal Credit Union.
Consumers continued to spend at grocery stores, electronics and appliance stores, health and personal stores and restaurants and bars – a bellwether of discretionary spending. They also continued to open their wallets when online shopping, with spending at non-store retailers climbing 0.2% from the previous month.
However, they pulled back their spending on big-ticket items such as cars and furniture. Spending also dropped at miscellaneous shops.
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Sales fell
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