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Posts tagged with: "RSGASS"

View this series on FRED

Changes in retail sales: Not by bread alone

The FRED Blog has previously discussed the impact of social distancing on retail sales for food and beverages. In today’s post, the pie graphs break down retail sales for items other than food and beverages.

The first graph shows consumer shopping habits in February 2020, before social distancing was mandated or encouraged across the U.S. At that time, the largest non-food category was motor vehicle and parts dealers.

The second pie graph shows the same categories of retail sales in April 2020, a full month after social distancing. Note how sales from non-store retailers, which include home delivery sales and electronic shopping, is now the largest category. You may also notice the category that has contracted the most is clothing and clothing accessory stores. Social distancing may have reduced consumer need for fashion, except for maybe “I *heart* social distancing” sweatpants.

How these graphs were created: From FRED’s main page, browse data by “Release.” Search for “Advance Monthly Sales for Retail and Food Services” and select “Advance Monthly Sales for Retail and Food Services by Kind of Business, Millions of Dollars, Seasonally Adjusted.” From the table, select each of the 11 non-food-related categories and click on “Add to Graph.” From the “Edit Graph” panel, use the “Edit Line” tab to change graph type to “Pie.” To show data from different months, edit the date above the graph canvas.

Suggested by Diego Mendez-Carbajo.

View on FRED, series used in this post: RSBMGESD, RSCCAS, RSEAS, RSFHFS, RSGASS, RSGMS, RSHPCS, RSMSR, RSMVPD, RSNSR, RSSGHBMS

Shopping lines: The evolution of retail in the U.S.

When it comes to shopping, Americans have many options: the corner store, the supermarket, the specialty store, the “big box,” online, and more. Above, we committed a graphing sin by displaying 12 different series in a single graph to show how retail trade has evolved across various categories.

Signs can be seen over the past two and a half decades: First, while food and beverage stores (supermarkets, convenience stores) were major destinations in the past, they have been joined by general merchandise stores, typically large suburban big box stores. A very volatile bunch are the gasoline stations, which sell mostly one commodity with a very variable price. Finally, one category seems to be steadily overtaking the others: mail-order and online shops (the line in black).

How this graph was created: Search for the Advance Monthly Sales for Retail and Food Services release and select the series you want to display. The release offers more series than the 12 we chose, but 12 is the maximum that can be shown on one FRED graph. In fact, with so many series, you need to make the graph larger by dragging the red marker in the bottom right corner of the graph. We chose the seasonally adjusted series and made the nonstore retail series black.

Suggested by Christian Zimmermann

View on FRED, series used in this post: RSBMGESD, RSCCAS, RSDBS, RSEAS, RSFHFS, RSFSDP, RSGASS, RSGMS, RSHPCS, RSMSR, RSNSR, RSSGHBMS

Keep the car running: retail gas sales and prices

Fuel has the reputation of being very price-inelastic: Consumption changes little even when the price changes. One way to illustrate this relationship is to compare the gasoline sales with prices. This is done in the graph above, and it is very clear these two measures move in sync. It is even more apparent if you look at their growth rates, shown below. Except for the recent recession, the growth rates are almost always very close to each other: The price swings only a little more widely, indicating that quantities respond very little to price changes.

How this graph was created: Search for one series, graph it, then add the other series. For the top graph, select the right axis for one series, as the scales are very different. To create the bottom graph, place both axes on the left and select “Percent Change From Year Ago” for both series.

Suggested by Christian Zimmermann.

View on FRED, series used in this post: DCOILWTICO, GASREGW, RSGASS


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