LBM dealers lead the curve in March retail sales

Though March appeared to be a slow month for retail sales overall -- with the Department of Commerce reporting a 0.3% decrease from the previous month -- the LBM industry came out on top.

Building material and garden equipment & supplies dealers experienced the most growth on a monthly annual basis, up 1.4% from February and up 10.8% year-over-year.

March's adjusted advance estimate came in at $30.2 billion for the category, compared with $29.8 billion in February and $27.3 billion in March 2015.

Total U.S. retail and food services sales, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $446.9 billion, down 0.3% month-over-month and 1.7% above March 2015.

Retail trade sales were down 0.2% from February 2016, and up 1.3% from last year.

Other categories to move the needle in a positive direction last month were health and personal care stores (1.0%), gasoline stations (0.9%), general merchandise stores (0.5%), furniture and home furnishing stores (0.3%), sporting goods, hobby, book & music stores (0.2%), and electronics and appliance stores (0.1%).

However, gasoline stations continued to bear the brunt of severe declines on an annual basis, down 15.6% year-over-year.