WASHINGTON — U.S. retail sales declined 0.3% in June to a seasonally adjusted $442 billion, the Commerce Department said. Figures for the prior two months were revised lower to show weaker spending this spring than had been estimated.
U.S. retail sales declined 0.3% in June to a seasonally adjusted $442 billion, the Commerce Department said. Figures for the prior two months were revised lower to show weaker spending this spring than had been estimated.
Sales at home and furniture stores fell 1.6% in June. Car sales declined 1.1%. Clothing sales were off by 1.5%, and restaurant sales slipped 0.2% from the previous month.
Costco Wholesale Corp. reported net sales of $11 billion for the five weeks ended July 5, an increase of 1% from a year earlier.
Costco said sales at U.S. stores open for at least one year increased 3% in the period. Companywide, same-store sales declined 1%, however, as international same-store sales fell 8%.
Rite Aid Corp. posted sales of $2 billion in June, an increase of 2.2% from a year earlier. The retailer said prescription sales accounted for 69% of drug store sales, with third-party prescription sales accounting for 97.8% of pharmacy sales.
Rite Aid said same-store sales in the four weeks through June 27 rose by 2.4%. Front-end same-store sales were up 0.3%, while pharmacy sales increased 3.4% despite a negative impact of about 226 basis points from generic drug introductions. Rite Aid said prescription count at stores open a year or more increased 0.2% from the comparable period the year before.
At Fred’s Inc., sales in the five weeks through July 4 increased 12% to $212.9 million. Excluding the $7.4 million contribution from the closing of 56 locations in the prior-year period, Fred’s sales were up 16% from the previous June.
Comparable-store sales increased 1.6%, in contrast to a decline of 0.6% a year earlier.
"The strong sales growth we experienced during June continued to reflect the recent expansion of our specialty pharmacy business, which accounted for approximately 11% of total sales," said Fred’s chief executive officer Jerry Shore, referring to the acquisition this year of Reeves-Sain Drug Store Inc., a private specialty and retail pharmacy company.
