Retail sales climbed 1.5% totalling over $70 billion in June; StatsCan

Statistics Canada says retail sales rose 1.5 per cent to $70.2 billion in June, helped by increased spending at food and beverage retailers.

However, the agency says its preliminary estimate for July pointed to a 0.8 per cent drop in retail sales for that month, though it cautioned the figure would be revised.

Retail sales in June were up in all nine subsectors tracked by Statistics Canada with sales at food and beverage retailers up 2.3 per cent.

Sales at clothing, clothing accessories, shoes, jewelry, luggage and leather goods retailers gained 5.1 per cent in June, while general merchandise retailers rose 1.6 per cent.

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Core retail sales, which exclude gasoline stations and fuel vendors and motor vehicle and parts dealers, gained 1.9 per cent in June.

In volume terms, retail sales rose 1.5 per cent, and matched estimates from most economists.

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“Spending has remained relatively firm, demand has remained relatively firm…it’s tied to a better Canadian consumer and overall economic demand backdrop than was feared in the spring,” says economist Nathan Janzen at the Royal Bank of Canada speaking to Global News.

“Not a super strong economy, but relative to where it looked like we could have been back in the spring, it’s been substantially less bad than feared.”

– With files from Global News’ Ari Rabinovitch