LBM dealers face small sales setback in November

Building material and garden equipment & supplies dealers (NAICS 444) fell behind the curve of overall retail sales in November, falling slightly behind October as most other categories experienced a small boost.

At $27.9 billion, the seasonally adjusted advance November 2015 estimate for LBM dealers was 0.3% below last month's figure but 2.2% ahead of the previous year's.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Census Bureau announced total U.S. retail and food services sales for November of $448.1 billion, up 0.2% from last month and 1.4% above last year.

Retail trade sales also rose 0.2% from October, but 0.7% from last November.

The categories that sustained the best year-over-year increases were nonstore retailers (7.3%) and food services and drinking places (6.5%).

Gasoline stations continued to fare at a drastically worse pace than other categories: down 19.9% over the year and 0.8% over the month.