Despite persistent gloom and doom surrounding the retail industry, the first half of the year has been positive for most product categories. According to the newly released monthly retail sales report from the US Census Bureau, for H1 2018, retail sales (excluding auto parts and gasoline) totaled $2.06 billion, up 4.9% year over year.
With the exception of sporting goods, which shrunk 1.7%, and department stores that stayed flat, all other segments experienced growth in H1 2018. Furniture and home goods (5.3%) and apparel (5.1%) saw the biggest gains.
Now par for the course, ecommerce outperformed total retail with 10.0% gains during H1 2018 compared with the same time last year.
According to a June 2018 eMarketer forecast, US retail ecommerce will grow 16.0% to $525.7 billion this year. The leading categories by sales are consumer electronics ($115.1 billion) and apparel and accessories ($103.6 billion), showing how comfortable consumers are with buying items like mobile phones and clothing online. Read the rest at eMarketer.
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