August Retail Sales Reflect Consumer Resilience—for Now
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  • Retail sales demonstrated a strong back-to-school shopping season, suggesting consumers remain resilient amid tariff-driven price increases. Nominal retail and food services sales rose by a healthy 0.6% m/m in August after increasing by 0.6% in July.

August Retail Sales Reflect Consumer Resilience—for Now

September 16, 2025

Trusted Insights for What’s Ahead®

  • Retail sales demonstrated a strong back-to-school shopping season, suggesting consumers remain resilient amid tariff-driven price increases. Nominal retail and food services sales rose by a healthy 0.6% m/m in August after increasing by 0.6% in July.

  • Adjusted for inflation, retail sales suggest that goods consumption was healthy for the most of Q3. Real sales rose by 0.3% m/m in August following a 0.14% increase. Based on two months of data, real retail sales grew by 2.8% q/q SAAR in Q3, up from 1.2% in Q2, suggesting a recovery in personal consumption in Q3 from lackluster growth in H1, the period when tariffs were announced.
  • A more detailed set of consumer spending data, to be released on 26 September, could indicate consumers continue to be foregoing more discretionary services purchases in favor of buying goods.
  • Surging imports in the beginning of Q3 point to a weak overall GDP reading in the quarter, even as personal consumption grows at a solid pace. We estimate GDP growth in the vicinity of 0.5% q/q SAAR in Q3. The recent strength in imports may also indicate another wave of stockpiling ahead of the new set of tariffs by businesses and consumers, pulling purchases forward ahead of ex
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Author

Yelena Shulyatyeva

Yelena Shulyatyeva

Senior US Economist

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