Home furnishings/furniture sector among stronger performers in monthly retail sales snapshot

Whether due to higher prices or a few more customers coming into stores, furniture and home furnishings bounced back in June, according to advance estimates from the Department of Commerce.

It’s a reversal for the category, and retail as a whole, after May’s report saw declines across several categories. For the month, the home furnishings retail category posted adjusted sales of $12.382 billion, up 1.4% from May’s adjusted $12.209 billion. Year-over-year, furniture and home furnishings sales were up 4.6% against June 2021’s $11.837 billion.

Over the past six months, unadjusted sales for furniture and home furnishings come in at $70.318 billion, up 2.9% compared with the same six-month span from red-hot 2021. The complete retail snapshot shows adjusted June sales at $680.591 billion, up a point from May’s $673.852 billion and up sharply, 8.4% to be exact, from June 2021’s $627.756 in adjusted sales.

Gas sales continue to be inflated, as the category was up 3.6% in June (and up 49.1% year-over-year). Other notable gainers in the month included non-store retailers (up 2.2%), miscellaneous store retailers (up 1.4%) and food services/drinking places (up 1.0%).

While most categories showed an increase in sales, there were a few with declining sales. Building material, garden equipment and supplies dealers were down 0.9%, while clothing and clothing accessories stores (down 0.4%), general merchandise stores (down 0.2%), and health and personal care stores (0.1%) weren’t as sharp in June.

The DOC’s advance estimates are based on a sub-sample of the U.S. Census Bureau’s full retail and food services sample. A stratified random sampling method is used to select approximately 5,500 retail and food services firms whose sales are then weighted and benchmarked to represent the complete universe of more than 3 million retail and food services firms.