NAICS 444 sales show strength, again
"January's retail sales numbers reflect a very strong start for consumers and retailers as we look ahead to a critical year," said Matthew Shay, National Retail Federation president and CEO.
Looking at the retail industry's big picture, advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for January 2021, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $568.2 billion, an increase of 5.3% from the previous month, and 7.4% above January 2020.
“We expected retail spending to ramp up in January thanks to the latest round of stimulus checks and better covid trends, and it clearly did,” NRF Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz said. “There was none of the falloff in spending that we often find post-holiday and the increase was even better than expected."