Our measure of core retail sales is the unadjusted year-over-year change, excluding gasoline and automobiles. This metric stood at 5.6% in July, up from 2.2% in June. [caption id="attachment_94793" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Data are not seasonally adjusted Source: US Census Bureau/Coresight Research [/caption]  

Retail Sales Grow Month Over Month

The Census Bureau’s own core metric is seasonally adjusted retail sales including automobiles and gasoline. Sales by this measure grew 3.4% year over year in July, slightly faster than the 3.2% growth rate seen in June.

On a month-over-month basis and seasonally adjusted, retail sales declined 0.6% in July.

[caption id="attachment_94794" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Data are seasonally adjusted Source: US Census Bureau [/caption]  

Retail Sales Growth by Sector

Several sectors saw faster growth in July than in June, notably furniture and home furnishings retailers, food and beverage stores, and health and personal care stores.

Electronics and appliance stores continued to see sales decline: Sales were down 2.3% year over year in July, but this was an improvement from June’s 6.6% slide.

Clothing-store sales were down 1.6% year over year in July, versus June’s 2.4% decline.

Nonstore retailers continued to post solid growth, with sales up 19.3% year over year versus 11.9% in June. One support for this acceleration could have been Amazon’s annual mid-July Prime Day event, which ran for 48 hours this year versus 36 hours in 2018.

[caption id="attachment_94795" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Data are not seasonally adjusted
Source: US Census Bureau/Coresight Research [/caption]