Saad Ullah
In March, retail sales in the US grew by 1.7% compared to the previous month. As noted by Truflation, this rate is higher than the 1.4% that analysts predicted. For February, the reported growth is now 0.7% instead of the first report of 0.6%.
On the list of retail sales metrics:
- Headline Retail Sales are +1.7% MoM.
- Retail Sales ex Autos are +1.9% MoM.
- Sales excluding Gasoline Stations are +0.6% MoM.
By looking at the numbers, sales are higher when they do not include vehicles - but when the data does not include gasoline stations, the growth is less rapid.
To explain the specific categories, sales at gasoline stations are 15.5% higher than in the previous month - this change is the most significant increase among the main groups during March.
It is important to note that those figures are the first estimates for March. If the February data is included, the values are now higher than before. And there are different levels of change across the various business areas.
Possible factors behind the increase
In the provided text, the author discusses why the numbers rose during March. While the source does not name one specific cause for the change, the data for each category shows that people spent more money on gasoline. At the same time the fact that people spent more even when excluding cars shows that growth happened in many areas.
By looking at the early data for March, it is clear that many types of stores saw more sales. As an example furniture stores rose by 2.2 percent, department stores rose by 4.2 percent and online stores rose by 1.0 percent. Due to those numbers, it is evident that the growth did not happen only in the fuel category.
As the report shows, the figures are the first estimates for March. With the new data, the figures for February are now higher than first reported. And when looking at each category, the amount of change is different for every part of the market.
Saad Ullah
