DIpil Das
US Apparel and Beauty Spending Tracker: June 2022
The Coresight Research US Apparel and Beauty Spending Tracker provides a monthly update on the trajectory of consumer spending on beauty, clothing and footwear. The data presented in this report refer to consumer spending through any channel and so differ from retail sales data, which include product category sales by type of retailer. The year-over-year changes that are the focus of this report are inferred from US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) data.
Clothing and Footwear Spending Update
Consumer spending on clothing and footwear saw some softness in June 2022. Year-over-year spending growth slowed down to 1.5% in June, lower than May’s revised 3.7% and April’s revised 4.9%.
Figure 1. US Consumer Spending on Clothing and Footwear (YoY % Change) [caption id="attachment_152568" align="aligncenter" width="700"]
Expenditure data are seasonally adjusted Source: BEA/Coresight Research [/caption]
Price rises were the major growth driver of the total spending on apparel and footwear in June 2022, with implied volumes down. The US inflation rate in the apparel and footwear category rose to 5.2% in June 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Figure 2. YoY Changes of Consumer Price Index in Apparel and Footwear for All Urban Consumers (%, Seasonally Adjusted) [caption id="attachment_152569" align="aligncenter" width="701"]
Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics[/caption]
Clothing and Footwear Spending by Subcategory
We track four subcategories of clothing and footwear: footwear, children’s and infants’ clothing, men’s and boys’ clothing and women’s and girls’ clothing.
Spending on clothing overall saw a year-over-year increase of 2.2% in June, lower than the revised 4.9% growth in May and 6.5% growth in April. Figure 2 shows spending on clothing by category type. Category sales growth followed the same growth pattern as clothing overall, with a peak in April 2021, followed by positive year-over-year growth from May 2021 to June 2022.
Figure 3. US Consumer Spending on Clothing by Category (YoY % Change) [caption id="attachment_152570" align="aligncenter" width="699"]
Source: BEA/Coresight Research[/caption]
Spending on footwear declined 0.7% in June, versus a decline of 0.1% in May and a slight growth of 0.4% in April.
Figure 4. US Consumer Spending on Footwear (YoY % Change) [caption id="attachment_152571" align="aligncenter" width="698"]
Source: BEA/Coresight Research[/caption]
Beauty Spending Update
Our tracker follows the US BEA definition of the beauty category, including bath products, cosmetics, nail products and tools and perfumes.
Consumer spending on beauty increased by 3.9% year over year in June, lower than the 5.5% growth seen in May and 4.2% growth in April. Spending on beauty recovered quickly amid the pandemic and has seen positive year-over-year growth since July 2020.
Figure 5. US Consumer Spending on Selected Beauty Categories (YoY % Change) [caption id="attachment_152572" align="aligncenter" width="701"]
The beauty category is defined as bath products, cosmetics, nail products and tools and perfumes Source: BEA/Coresight Research [/caption]