NAICS 444 sales rose in March

Even amid early stages of social-distancing and coronavirus-outbreak mitigation efforts, the month of March saw gains in sales for NAICS 444 retailers, the broad category of dealers described as building material and garden equipment and supplies dealers.

The Census Bureau's advanced data for March revealed NAICS 444 sales were up 7.6% compared to March 2019, and up 1.3% compared to February 2020.

On a non-adjusted basis, NAICS 444 sales were $33.6 billion in March, compared to $20.5 billion in the same month a year ago.

[Related news: Builder confidence plummets.]

Across the entire retail spectrum, the advance estimates of US. retail and food services for March, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $483.1 billion. That’s down 8.7%.

As some categories or retail were deemed essential -- such as grocery, hardware and building supply -- and others weren't, the numbers from March revealed big winners, and big losers compared to March 2019:

Winners:

• Food and beverage stores, up 28.0%


• The subset of grocery stores, up 29.3%


• Non-store retailers, up 9.7%


• Building material dealers, up 7.6%

Losers:

• Clothing and accessories stores, down 50.7%


• Furniture and home furnishing stores, down 24.6%


• Motor vehicle and parts dealers, down 23.7%

See the full report from the Census Bureau here.