WASHINGTON - Retail sales fell 0.3% in December, far below economists’ expectations, while sales for the entire year fell the most in 17 years, the Commerce Department reported this morning.
While overall December sales were up 5.4% compared to December 2008, total sales for the 12 months of 2009 were down 6.2% from 2008, the largest year-over-year decline since 1992, when Commerce began collecting such data. Between 2008 and 2007, sales fell 0.5%.
Meanwhile, excluding autos for the month of December, sales fell 0.2% while sales at motor vehicle and parts dealers fell 0.8%, following the category’s unrevised 1.2% rise in November.
Economists polled by Thomson Reuters had expected overall retail sales to increase 0.5% in December and for sales excluding autos to increase 0.3%, according to the median estimate.
