Lost swagger: Broad-based retail weakness despite scant gain
|Summary
The August retail sales report is the latest example of a choosy consumer continuing to spend even if the pace of growth is slowing sharply. Despite a big gain for ecommerce, broad-based declines across store types offer further confirmation of lost swagger in consumer spending.
Ecommerce to other retailers: I drink your milkshake
Some reports tell you everything in the headline, today's retail sales report for August is not one of them. Yes the headline increase of 0.1% was better than the modest drop that had been expected. You can thank a smaller-than-expected drop in motor vehicle sales for that. The ex-autos line tells us more about the present state of the consumer after setting aside that big-ticket category, and here we find that sales inched only incrementally (+0.1%) higher in August.
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