Retail and food services sales for September, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, slipped 0.3 percent to $525.6 billion in September from the prior month.
But they were still up 4.1 percent from the same period a year ago, according to the September 2019: Advance Estimates of U.S. Retail and Food Services from he U.S. Census Bureau.
The July to August 2019 percent change was revised from up 0.4 percent to up 0.6 percent, also a silver lining.
But if you want to know where the biggest strength is, you need to look beyond brick-and-mortar. “Nonstore retailers” were up 12.9 percent from a year ago and miscellaneous stores were up 9.3 percent from last year.
