Strong showing for NAICS 444

The latest sales tally for building material and garden equipment and supplies dealers — the wide-ranging retail group known also as NAICS 444 — show a gain of 5.2% compared to year ago.

That’s according to the May Advance Monthly Sales report from the U.S. Census. The report was released Thursday morning.

The year-over-year growth for NAICS 444 was ahead of most other retail sectors, but behind gasoline stations (up 17.7%), non-store retailers (up 9.1%) clothing stores (up 5.9%), and miscellaneous stores (up 7.5%).

NAICS 444 also turned in one of the strongest month-to-month sales gains — up 2.4%. Only Miscellaneous stores did better, up 2.7%.

Overall, advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for May, adjusted for seasonal variation and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $502.0 billion — up 0.8% from the previous month. Sales were up 5.9% above May 2017.