February furniture store sales jump 3.8%

WASHINGTON — February furniture and home furnishings store sales increased 3.8% over the same month a year ago, perhaps the last solid month of gains before the coming impact of the coronavirus as some stores have now initiated temporary closings and begin to report weakening sales.

U.S. sales for the sector grew to an estimated $9.95 billion from $9.59 billion in February 2019, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce report released Tuesday. Sales decreased 0.4% from a preliminary estimate for $9.99 billion in January, a figure revised up from the previously reported $9.75 billion.

Sales for all U.S. retail and food services industries combined for a 4.3% increase over February last year to an estimated $528.1 billion and decreased 0.5% from revised January sales.  Retail trade sales increased 4.2% year-over-year and decreased 0.5% from January, according to the report.

All but two sector categories say year-over-year sales increases, led by the sector referred to as miscellaneous store retailers (businesses such as florists, pet and pet supplies stores and used merchandise stores), up 14.8%. Non-store retailers, including e-commerce and catalog businesses, which often lead the pack, saw the second best year-over-year increase of 7.5%.

Department stores, a subset of general merchandise stores, continued to bring up the rear, with a 5.8% decrease from February a year ago. Electronics and appliance stores also were in negative territory with a 1.0% sales decrease.

For a three-month period through February, furniture and home furnishings store sales increased 3.3% from the same period last year. Overall retail and food services sales increased 4.9%, and non-store retailer sales gained 10.9% — behind the 11.9% gain for miscellaneous stores.

This month, retailers across sector have announced store closure in an effort to stem the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. Today, for instance, Atlanta-based Havertys said it will temporarily close its retail locations beginning March 19 until April 2 and will suspend warehouse and distribution operations for two weeks as well. San Francisco, Calif.-based Williams-Sonoma also announced temporary closure of all U.S. and Canada stores, effective at 6 p.m. today, with reopening slated for April 2.

The 700 Club - February 12, 2020