After a down March, retail and food services sales rebound

Advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for April 2023, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $686.1 billion, up 0.4% (±0.5%)* from the previous month, and up 1.6% (±0.7%) above April 2022. Total sales for the February 2023 through April 2023 period were up 3.1% (±0.4%) from the same period a year ago. The February 2023 to March 2023 percent change was revised from down 0.6% (±0.5%) to down 0.7% (±0.2%).

Retail trade sales were up 0.4% (±0.5%)* from March 2023, and up 0.5% (±0.5%)* above last year. Nonstore retailers were up 8% (±1.2%) from last year, while food services and drinking places were up 9.4% (±2.5%) from April 2022.

The advance estimates are based on a subsample of the Census Bureau’s full retail and food services sample. A stratified random sampling method is used to select approximately 4,800 retail and food services firms whose sales are then weighted and benchmarked to represent the complete universe of over 3 million retail and food services firms.