{"id":1004152607,"date":"2016-09-16T05:14:25","date_gmt":"2016-09-16T13:14:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/?p=1004152607"},"modified":"2022-11-26T09:30:09","modified_gmt":"2022-11-26T17:30:09","slug":"economy-watch-retail-sales-edge-down-in-august","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/economy-watch-retail-sales-edge-down-in-august\/","title":{"rendered":"Economy Watch: Retail Sales Edge Down in August"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Dees Stribling, Contributing Editor<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1004152608\" style=\"width: 303px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2016\/09\/Census-Bureau-retail-sales-0816.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1004152608\" data-attachment-id=\"1004152608\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/economy-watch-retail-sales-edge-down-in-august\/census-bureau-retail-sales-0816\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2016\/09\/Census-Bureau-retail-sales-0816.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"350,358\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;Samantha Goldberg&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1474016572&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Census Bureau retail sales 0816\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Percent Change in Retail and Food Services Sales, August 2016&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2016\/09\/Census-Bureau-retail-sales-0816.jpg?w=350\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1004152608\" src=\"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2016\/09\/Census-Bureau-retail-sales-0816.jpg\" alt=\"Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Percent Change in Retail and Food Services Sales, August 2016\" width=\"293\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2016\/09\/Census-Bureau-retail-sales-0816.jpg 350w, https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2016\/09\/Census-Bureau-retail-sales-0816.jpg?resize=293,300 293w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 293px) 100vw, 293px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1004152608\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Percent Change in Retail and Food Services Sales, August 2016<\/p><\/div>\n<p>U.S. retail and food services sales were down 0.3 percent in August, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.census.gov\/retail\/marts\/www\/marts_current.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Census Bureau reported<\/a> on Thursday, which was an unexpected drop. It&#8217;s also a metric that might make retailers nervous ahead of the critical holiday sales season (and no matter how retailers try to stretch it forward, we&#8217;re still not there yet), though one month&#8217;s data can, in the long run, be noise. Compared with the same month last year, retail sales are still up, turning in a gain of 1.9 percent.<\/p>\n<p>Only a few kinds of retailers gained any ground at all in August. Clothing store sales were up by 0.7 percent for the month, and electronics retailers eked out a gain of 0.1 percent. Grocery store sales were up 0.4 percent in August, and food services and drinking places enjoyed a 0.9 percent gain for the month.<\/p>\n<p>Remarkably, nonstore (Internet) retail sales, which rarely see any kind of downtick in sales, were off 0.3 percent for the month. The two categories that did the worst in August\u2014each down 1.4 percent for the month\u2014were building material and garden equipment and supplies, along with sporting goods, hobby, book and music stores.<\/p>\n<p>Most retailers are still seeing year-over-year gains, according to the Census Bureau, with Internet sales doing the best: up 10.9 percent. Health and personal care stores also did very well for the year, up 7.8 percent, and food service and drinking places&#8217; sales increased 5.8 percent. In the losing category in annual sales were department stores (down 5 percent), electronics stores (down 3.1 percent) and gas stations (down 9.5 percent, because of slumping gas prices).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Retailers saw an unexpected drop in sales in August, but most are still seeing year-over-year gains, the Census Bureau reported.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1023,"featured_media":1004152608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23891,21742,21749],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1004152607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","category-latest","category-retail"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.0 (Yoast SEO v28.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Economy Watch: Retail Sales Edge Down in August - Commercial Property Executive<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/economy-watch-retail-sales-edge-down-in-august\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Economy Watch: Retail Sales Edge Down in August\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Retailers saw an unexpected drop in sales in August, but most are still seeing year-over-year gains, the Census Bureau reported.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/economy-watch-retail-sales-edge-down-in-august\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Commercial Property Executive\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CPExecutive\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-09-16T13:14:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-11-26T17:30:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2016\/09\/Census-Bureau-retail-sales-0816.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"350\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"358\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dees Stribling\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@cpexecutive\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@cpexecutive\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.commercialsearch.com\\\/news\\\/economy-watch-retail-sales-edge-down-in-august\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.commercialsearch.com\\\/news\\\/economy-watch-retail-sales-edge-down-in-august\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Dees Stribling\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.commercialsearch.com\\\/news\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/dc1e9fa4ee0430d86f8e60cd697c953c\"},\"headline\":\"Economy Watch: Retail Sales Edge Down in August\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-09-16T13:14:25+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-11-26T17:30:09+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.commercialsearch.com\\\/news\\\/economy-watch-retail-sales-edge-down-in-august\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":294,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.commercialsearch.com\\\/news\\\/economy-watch-retail-sales-edge-down-in-august\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.commercialsearch.com\\\/news\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/sites\\\/46\\\/2016\\\/09\\\/Census-Bureau-retail-sales-0816.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"National\",\"News\",\"Retail\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.commercialsearch.com\\\/news\\\/economy-watch-retail-sales-edge-down-in-august\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.commercialsearch.com\\\/news\\\/economy-watch-retail-sales-edge-down-in-august\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.commercialsearch.com\\\/news\\\/economy-watch-retail-sales-edge-down-in-august\\\/\",\"name\":\"Economy Watch: Retail Sales Edge Down in August - 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