Retail sales (excluding automoblies and gasoline) rose by 4.6 percent in September, on a seasonally adjusted basis, up from a year ago, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Retailers selling electronics, apparel, furniture, and health and personal-care products turned in the strongest year-over-year performances.
Sales of electronics products rose by 5.8 percent — the best year-over-year performance in this category since November 2011, when the category increased by 6.5 percent.
September's year-over-year electronics sales increase was the strongest since November 2011
Apparel sales were up by 4.6 percent, marking that category's eighth consecutive month of healthy year-over-year increases. Furniture sales climbed by 4.3 percent, and health and personal-care product sales rose by nearly as much: 4.1 percent. Sales at restaurants and drinking establishments, meanwhile, jumped by 7.1 percent.
General-merchandise stores overall reported a 3.6 percent sales increase. Sales at traditional and discount department stores, however, slipped by 1.5 percent, while sporting-goods, hobby, book and music stores saw a 3.8 percent decrease.
Nonstore sales — a broad category that includes online sales by physical retailers, sales by e-tailers such as Amazon.com and mail-order purchases — shot up by 11.4 percent, according to the Census Bureau.
By Edmund Mander
Director, Editor-In-Chief/SCT
