June retail sales get warmer

U.S. retailers ended spring with a small but notable improvement in financial performance.



According to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau, adjusted advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for June were $457 billion. This represents an increase of 0.6% from the previous month, and 2.7% higher than June 2015.



Total sales for the April 2016 through June 2016 period were up 2.6% from the same period a year earlier. In addition, retail trade sales were up 0.7% from May 2016, and up 2.4% from the same month the previous year.



Strongly performing year-over-year categories included non-store retailers, who were up 14.2 percent (±1.2%) from June 2015, while health and personal care stores were up 8.4% from the previous year. Categories that lost ground compared to the same month in 2015 included gasoline stations (-9.6%), electronics and appliance stores (-4.7%), department stores (-3.7%), clothing and accessory stores (-0.9%) and general merchandise stores (-0.2%).