WASHINGTON — The furniture and home furnishings category put together another month of strong year-over-year sales in August, according to the Department of Commerce‘s advance monthly estimates.
The category, which measures brick-and-mortar store sales, totaled $11.645 billion in adjusted estimated sales, an increase of 5.2% compared to August 2024’s $11.07 billion, and 0.3% off the pace from July’s $11.677 billion in adjusted preliminary sales.
Year-to-date, the DOC estimates that the furniture and home furnishings category has totaled $90.30 billion in unadjusted sales, which represents a 5.4% year-over-year increase.
See also:
Taking in the full retail picture, the DOC reports $732.01 billion in adjusted estimated sales across all categories, which is five points higher than August 2024’s $697.16 billion and 0.6% up on July’s adjusted preliminary $727.41 billion.
While the furniture category’s year-over-year figures were higher than the overall increase, it wasn’t alone in posting better percentages. Miscellaneous store retailers and non-store retailers (e-commerce) were up 10.7% and 10.1%, respectively. Clothing and clothing accessory stores were up 8.3% (likely on the strength of back-to-school), food services and drinking places were up 6.5% and motor vehicle and parts dealers had a 5.6% gain.
Conversely, and of interest to the home furnishings sector, building material, garden equipment and supplies dealers were 2.3% off the year-over-year pace in August.
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.
