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The Almighty Buck United States

US Retail Sales Plunged a Record 16 Percent In April As Virus Hit (apnews.com) 24

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Associated Press: U.S. retail sales tumbled by a record 16.4% from March to April as business shutdowns caused by the coronavirus kept shoppers away, threatened the viability of stores across the country and further weighed down a sinking economy. The Commerce Department's report Friday on retail purchases showed a sector that has collapsed so fast that sales over the past 12 months are down a crippling 21.6%. The severity of the decline is unrivaled for retail figures that date back to 1992. The monthly decline in April nearly doubled the previous record drop of 8.3% -- set just one month earlier.

The sharpest declines from March to April were at clothing, electronics and furniture stores. A long-standing migration of consumers toward online purchases is accelerating, with that segment posting a 8.4% monthly gain. Measured year over year, online sales surged 21.6%. Other than online, not a single retail category was spared in April. Auto dealers suffered a monthly drop of 13%. Furniture stores absorbed a 59% plunge. Electronics and appliance stores were down over 60%. Retailers that sell building materials posted a drop of roughly 3%. After panic buying in March, grocery sales fell 13%. Clothing-store sales tumbled 79%, department stores 29%. Restaurants, some of which are already starting to close permanently, endured a nearly 30% decline despite shifting aggressively to takeout and delivery orders.
Economists estimate that the gross domestic product (GDP) is shrinking in the April-June quarter at a roughly 40% annual rate. That would be the deepest quarterly drop on record.

Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist for the consultancy Maria Fiorini Ramirez, said he thinks retail sales should rebound somewhat as states and localities reopen their economies. But he said overall sales would remain depressed "because there is going to be a big chunk of the lost jobs that don't come back."
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US Retail Sales Plunged a Record 16 Percent In April As Virus Hit

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  • Only 16%? (Score:5, Informative)

    by hawguy ( 1600213 ) on Friday May 15, 2020 @05:08PM (#60065460)

    That seems much smaller than I expected given the scale of the lockdown - I haven't bought anything but groceries and a few items for my home office since lockdown.

    • Yeah, that's not bad at all. That said I'm saying this in front of a Costco with people streaming in and then out with carts full of crap like ants.
      • March had to be interesting for Costco. Started off more or less normal. Then a huge spike when the panic-buyers all jammed in to stockpile up. The end of March had to be brutal - I went then during the middle of the day expecting a zoo, but the panic-buyers were done by that point and in terms of customers the place was by far the emptiest I had ever seen it (stock levels, however, were more or less still normal). April started out that way, and from what I can tell over the past few weeks a ramp back

    • Re:Only 16%? (Score:4, Informative)

      by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Friday May 15, 2020 @05:15PM (#60065480)

      While, for the US, the article only mentions the March -> April drop, there was already a hard downward economic shift underway prior to the widespread stay-at-home orders.

      The February -> March drop in the EU, according to the article, was -11.2%. Note that the first EU country to impose a nationwide lockdown was Italy on March 10.

    • Yep, with brick and mortar on curbside only, and Amazon slow... quite a big drop was expected.

  • by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Friday May 15, 2020 @05:27PM (#60065528)

    Nobody need trousers or skirts on video-conferences.

  • A 16% grade is _relatively_ steep, but its not a plunge or nowhere near a tumble. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] What's your point old man? Whatever that number was going to be - the word behind it was still going to be "plunged".
  • ..are you including online sales
    If not how are the figures so high, if you are then of course the clothes sales are down,since clothes sizing in the states is an arbitrary figure not a reality no-one is buying online

  • by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Friday May 15, 2020 @07:58PM (#60065984)
    Can't buy it if it isn't in stores.
  • Only reason to buy in a physical retail store is:

    - you want it right fucking now
    - not practical to ship
    - you do not know what you want
    - impulse buys

    So many stores either do not carry what I want or have it in stock even if they carry it. Why fucking bother? Especially with crowds or dumb shit rules.

  • even before the coronavirus pandemic began, I decided to open a business account of my store on Instagram and using the services of Instagram Followers with guarantee https://take-top.com/buy-insta... [take-top.com] I was able to recruit the right amount of followers. So I have no problems with sales.

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