Retail sales rose 0.2% from May to June, a bit smaller than what analysts were expected. The gain followed a revised 0.5% increase the previous month, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday.Sales at grocery stores fell 0.7%, while business at clothing stores rose 0.6%. At restaurants, sales rose 0.1%. Online sales rose 1.9%.The uptick in sales follows an increase in May that pointed to an economy that remains resilient despite rising prices.
Consumers, whose spending accounts for about 70% of U.S. economic activity, have been the engine behind the economic recovery from a slowdown during the pandemic. Government relief checks, the suspension of student loan payments and super-low interest rates helped. Now, he keeps track of the coupons in the Target and Walmart apps, scours the grocery aisles for deals on meat and buys store-brand canned goods.There are a handful of brands he loves and won’t substitute, including Mountain Dew and Hidden Valley Ranch dressing. But for most other products, including shampoo, he’ll use whatever is on sale.“I never thought I would shop like my mother. But if I don’t have a coupon for it, I don’t get it,” Dixon said.
“It’s not a trade down within individual categories to lower-priced alternatives. It looks, optically, more like a cutting back and what I call hunkering down,” Conagra CEO Sean Connolly told analysts. “And one thing I know for sure, people aren’t eating less. So they’re making choices to manage their budget.”
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