DOMESTIC TRADE

RETAIL TRADE

Estimates of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce indicate that sales of retail establishments in 1935 approximated $32,600,000,000, a gain of about 14 percent as compared with the 1934 estimate of $28,649,000,000 and a gain of 30 percent compared with the total of $25,037,000,000 reported in the Census of American Business for 1933.

Although each major retail group for which statistics are available registered improvement in 1935 over the previous year, the rate of increase varied greatly among the different trades. The largest estimated increases, approximating 25 percent each, were in the automotive and mail-order groups. Other significant increases occurred as follows: Furniture and household appliances, 21 percent; lumber and building materials, 20 percent; restaurants, eating, and drinking places, 18 percent; jewelry stores, 15 percent; farmer's supplies and country general stores, 12 percent; and foods, including liquors, 11 percent. Estimates of total net sales by retailers, distributed by kinds of business for 1929 to 1935 inclusive, are shown in the following table.

Net Sales of Retailers, by Kinds of Business, 1929–35 1

1 1929 figures are actual data taken from the Census of Retail Distribution; 1933 figures are actual data taken from the 1933 Census of American Business; and figures for 1930, 1931, 1932, 1934, and 1935 are estimates based on trends of currently published statistics.

2 Addition of beer and liquor stores raises this estimate to an 11-percent increase for 1935. The increase for food stores alone is estimated at 6 percent.

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The increase in dollar volume of retail sales in 1935 indicates an increase also in physical volume, since average retail prices, with the exception of food prices, did not change to any significant extent. The Fairchild retail price index, for example, averaged 2 percent lower in 1935 than in 1934. However, during the last quarter of 1935, prices began to rise, and by January 1936 the Fairchild index had reached the highest level since May 1934.

DEPARTMENT-STORE AND RURAL RETAIL SALES

All the available statistics indicate that in 1935, as in 1934, the increase in trade was more pronounced in rural agricultural areas than in urban centers. This difference is illustrated by figure 35, which compares the Bureau's index of rural retail sales with the Federal Reserve index of department-store sales.

Figure 35.-Rural General Merchandise Sales and Department-Store Sales, 1929-35. NOTE.---Index numbers for department-store sales were recomputed on a 1929-31 base from the index of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Both indexes in chart are adjusted for seasonal variation.

According to the Bureau's index, which is based on mail-order sales and sales of chain stores operating in rural areas, rural sales of general merchandise in 1935 were 19 percent above those in 1934 and 44 percent above those in 1933. Department-store sales in 1935, however, were only about 5 percent larger than in 1934 and 18 percent larger than in 1933.

Similarly, in the period of decline following 1929 rural sales fell off more rapidly than did department-store trade. The seasonally adjusted index registered a low of 47.5 in March 1933, but thereafter advanced with only temporary setbacks, and in December 1935 reached a figure of 110 (1929-31-100), the highest point in 6 years. Department-store sales held up fairly well from 1929

through the middle of 1931 and then declined rapidly to their lowest point in March 1933. The irregular upward movement since then has been decidedly less marked than the expansion in rural

Figure 36.-Estimated Net Sales of Retailers, by Kinds of Business, 1929-35 (United States Department of Commerce).

trade. Total sales in 1935, however, were the largest since 1931, and sales in December 1935 were the largest for any December since

1930.

The relative increase in rural sales in 1935 was fairly uniform in the different major geographic regions of the country. The largest gain was in the South, where an increase of 20 percent was recorded; gains in other major areas were 191⁄2 percent in the far West, 1812 in the Middle West, and 17 percent in the East. Increases in department-store sales in the various Federal Reserve districts for the year ranged upward to 10 percent. All districts except Boston reported an increase; and in the Boston area, sales were equal to those in 1934. Increases in sales in those districts which might be classified as predominantly agricultural were somewhat higher than in other districts.

INDEPENDENT-STORE SALES

During the latter half of 1935 an effort was made by the Bureau to secure a monthly measure of consumer purchasing in independent stores. The analysis of sales by these stores, for the period available, reflects a marked improvement in most lines of trade. In the closing months of 1935 combined sales of approximately 1,800 stores located in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin displayed percentage increases over corresponding months in 1934, as follows: October, 15 percent; November, 24 percent; and December, 17 percent. The aggregate sales of about 800 stores in Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico showed increases of about 6 percent in October and 21 percent in both November and December, as compared with sales in the same months of 1934.

OTHER RETAIL SALES

Probably no major industrial group has profited more from the expansion of purchasing power than the automobile industry. Retail sales of new passenger automobiles in 1935 were larger than those of any year since 1930. In dollar volume such sales in 1935 were 45 percent higher than in 1934 and 94 percent above 1933.

The increase in dollar volume of chain grocery store sales was 4 percent in 1935 as compared with 1934. This relative gain was less than the price increase indicated for the period by the Bureau of Labor Statistics index of retail food prices, which rose 11 percent (largely because of higher prices of meats, fats, and oils).

The extent of decline in the various lines of retail business from 1929 to 1933, together with recovery during 1934 and 1935, are shown in figure 36.

WHOLESALE TRADE

Trade of wholesalers proper, according to estimates of the Bureau, amounted to $16,287,000,000 in 1935, an increase of 11 percent as compared with estimates of $14,710,000,000 for 1934, and of 25 percent over the 1933 sales of $14,997,000,000.

Net Sales of Wholesalers Proper, by Kinds of Business, 1929-351

The term "wholesalers proper" refers to wholesalers in domestic and foreign trade who take title to the goods they buy and sell and who are largely independent in ownership. Figures for 1929 are actual data taken from the Fifteenth Census of United States Wholesale Distribution adjusted to changes in classification in the Census of American Business, 1933. The figures for 1933 are actual data taken from Census of American Business, and those for 1930, 1931, 1932, 1934, and 1935 are estimates based on trends of currently published statistics.

2 For comparative purposes the 1929 data have been adjusted to changes in classification of a few large establishments.

Source: U. S. Department of Commerce.

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