WASHINGTON — Furniture and home furnishings‘ streak of year-over-year sales gains continued in October — barely.
According to the Department of Commerce’s advance monthly estimates for the month — which remain behind schedule due to the fall’s government shutdown — the category, which measures estimated brick-and-mortar sales, totaled an adjusted estimated $11.264 billion, which is 0.5% more than October 2024’s adjusted $11.205 billion, and 2.3% ahead of September’s adjusted preliminary $11.015 billion.
October 2024 was when the category began showing year-over-year growth after about 20 months of sagging numbers, meaning future months will be measured against increasingly better performances. It also represents a full calendar year’s worth of year-over-year gains.
Year-to-date, the category has accrued almost $112 billion in unadjusted sales, which the DOC says is 3.8% up on 2024’s levels.
Examining the overall retail picture, the DOC estimated an adjusted $732.63 billion in October, which was 3.5% ahead of October 2024’s adjusted $708.1 billion and essentially flat compared with September’s adjusted revised $732.44 billion.
Notable year-over-year gainers in October included miscellaneous store retailers (9.5%), non-store (e-commerce) retailers (9.0%), health and personal care stores and clothing and clothing accessory stores (5.7% each), electronics and appliance stores (4.9%), sporting goods, hobby, musical instrument and book stores (4.6%) and food services and drinking places (4.1%).
Of interest to the furniture and home furnishings category, the building material, garden equipment and supplies dealers category was down 4.5% compared to October 2024.
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.
