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

Washington — 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 came 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 continued 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 US 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.

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Thomas Lester is Retail Editor for Furniture Today and Digital/Managing Editor for Home Accents Today. A graduate of Emory & Henry College’s Mass Communications program, Lester spent a dozen years working for newspapers in Virginia and North Carolina covering an array of subjects, ranging from community news, government, education, ACC sports, professional baseball and more before joining Furniture Today in 2013. Reach out to me with your story ideas, tips and more at [email protected].