The US retail trade sector experienced a slight uptick in sales, with a 0.2 per cent increase from April 2024 and a 2 per cent rise compared to the same period last year, according to the advance estimates from the US Census Bureau. Notably, non-store retailers saw a significant increase, with sales up 6.8 per cent from the previous year.

The combined value of distributive trade sales and manufacturers’ shipments for April, adjusted for seasonal and trading day differences but not for price changes, reached an estimated $1,862.4 billion. This represents a 0.3 per cent increase from March 2024 and a 2.2 per cent rise from April 2023, as per the bureau.

Manufacturers and trade inventories for April, adjusted similarly for seasonal and trading day differences, were estimated at an end-of-month level of $2,545.2 billion. This marks a 0.3 per cent increase from March 2024 and a 1.0 per cent rise from April 2023.

The total business inventories to sales ratio based on seasonally adjusted data at the end of April stood at 1.37, a slight decrease from the April 2023 ratio of 1.38.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DP)