Retail Sales Factoids for July 2008
Here are some interesting data points from the Census Bureau's retail sales report for July 2008, which provides a thorough breakdown by category that you don't really get in the usual media coverage. For each category below find the YoY change in total sales (not adjusted for inflation) from July 2007 to July 2008:
Car Dealers: -11.72% *This number excludes auto parts, hence the reason it's higher than the -10% auto number quoted by many media outlets.
Furniture & Home Furniture Stores: -4.79%
Electronics & Appliance Stores: 4.83%
Building Materials & Garden Supply Stores: -1.01%
Grocery Stores: 5.56%
Gas Stations: 24.61%
Clothing: 0.94%
When looking at the numbers it's important to make sure you think about them more within the context of the amount of goods and services (or value) received per dollar spent, as opposed to the gross dollar spent on a particular category. For instance the prices for electronics items tends to decline on a YoY basis especially for many of the hot new items in demand by customers, so a YoY price increase indicates that people are buying more items AND receiving more value for the dollar. However with respect to groceries and gas the increases are being driven by inflation so prices can increase even if demand is decreasing; case in point: spending on gasoline increasing by 24% despite a YoY decline in demand for gas.
Either way it's becoming more and more obvious that the stimulus checks have had limited effect, because it appears that people are hanging on to them or using them to pay debt instead of spending them in subsequent months. If this trend continues it's likely that in future months people will be spending their stimulus checks out of need rather than because they want to.
Finally I think it's safe to say that this coming Holiday Shopping season is likely to be another dismal one for retailers, last year's wasn't especially good and consumers weren't suffering from energy prices, the credit crunch, etc, to the same degree they are now. As it is even a stronger than expected holiday shopping season probably wouldn't be enough to make up for the losses retailers have suffered so far this year.
Sources:
U.S. Census Bureau: "Advance Monthly Sales For Retail Trade And Food Services; July 2008" -- August 13, 2008.
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