Retail Sales November, 2008 – Down 7.4% from Previous Year

The U.S. Census Bureau, a division of the Commerce Department, announced today that advance numbers for U.S. retail and food services sales for November were $355.7 billion, a decrease of 1.8 percent from October, the previous month.  The total sales figure was a decrease of 7.4 percent below November 2007 numbers.  These figures are adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes.  Total sales for the period from September through November 2008 period was down 4.5 percent from the same period a year ago.

Some of the drilled down statistics included; retail trade sales were down 2.0 percent from October 2008 and were down 8.5 percent below November of 2007.  Motor vehicle and parts dealers sales were down 2.8 percent from October 2008 and a whopping 25.2 percent from November 2007.  Gasoline stations sales were down 14.7 percent from October 2008 and 22.0 percent from last year.  The drop in gasoline sales is a simple reflection of the price drops, not units sold.

These numbers are seasonally adjusted but not inflation adjusted.  There are few benefits to seasonal adjustments; however, holiday time periods and sales days per month can skew singular month data.  When reviewing non seasonally adjusted numbers in these statistics it is far more valuable to look at trends rather than the individual monthly figures.  If seasonal adjustments are excluded the numbers are as follows:

Total retail sales for November was $346.89 billion, down 9.03% from November, 2007.
Total sales excluding motor vehicles and parts stood at $298.01 billion, down 4.83% from November, 2007.
Motor vehicle parts and dealers $48.88 billion, down 28.31% from November, 2007.
Gasoline stations $29.94 billion down 23.44% from November, 2007.
Total retail sales or the first 11 months of this year are $4,085,664
Total retail sales for 11 months at this time in 2006 was $4,077.51 billion.
Total sales in 2005 for the first 11 months was $3,945.23 billion.

The U.S. Census Bureau conducts the Advance Monthly Retail Trade and Food Services Survey to provide an early estimate of monthly sales by kind of business for retail and food service firms located in the United States.  Each month, questionnaires are mailed to a probability sample of approximately 5,000 employer firms selected from the larger Monthly Retail Trade Survey.  Firms responding to the Monthly Retail Trade Survey account for approximately 65% of the total national sales estimate.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 12th, 2008 at 6:07 am and is filed under Economic Statistics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.