Consumers headed back to clothing, furniture and department stores in September, but not in great enough numbers to offset a record decline in gasoline sales, the Associate Press reports.
Overall, retail sales dipped by a bigger-than-expected 0.4 percent. But they actually posted a 0.6 percent advance when the big drop in prices at gasoline stations was excluded, the Commerce Department reported Friday.
And a second report from the University of Michigan showed that the big declines in gasoline costs helped consumer confidence to rise sharply in October, posting a preliminary reading for the month of 92.3, up from 85.4 in September.
