OTTAWA \u2014 Retail sales fell 0.8 per cent to $69.6 billion in July as shoppers spent less at supermarkets and grocery stores, Statistics Canada said Friday.<\/p>\n
However, the agency said its advance estimate for August pointed to an increase of one per cent, though it cautioned the figure would be revised.<\/p>\n
Statistics Canada said retail sales in July were down in eight of the nine subsectors it tracks with motor vehicle and parts dealers as the only group to increase with a gain of 0.2 per cent.<\/p>\n
TD Bank economist Maria Solovieva said volatility in the data remains exceptionally high.<\/p>\n
“Cooling employment and softer wage gains are likely to catch up with consumers in Q3, reinforcing a more frugal mindset,” Solovieva wrote in a report.<\/p>\n
“While wealth effects could continue to buoy services spending among higher-income households, another leg up in domestic tourism and related spending appears unlikely. Goods demand, meanwhile, looks set for a sizable contraction, with vehicle sales likely to pull back in the third quarter.”<\/p>\n
For July, sales at food and beverage retailers fell 1.3 per cent as sales at supermarkets and other grocery retailers fell 2.5 per cent.<\/p>\n
Sales at clothing, clothing accessories, shoes, jewelry, luggage and leather goods retailers also dropped 2.9 per cent.<\/p>\n
Core retail sales \u2014 which exclude gasoline stations and fuel vendors and motor vehicle and parts dealers \u2014 fell 1.2 per cent in July.<\/p>\n
In volume terms, retail sales dropped 0.8 per cent in the month.<\/p>\n
The retail sales figures followed a pair of reports by Statistics Canada earlier this week that said both manufacturing and wholesale sales climbed in July.<\/p>\n
However, the Bank of Canada cut its key interest rate on Wednesday by a quarter of a percentage point to 2.5 per cent as it raised concerns about a weakening economy.<\/p>\n
Canada lost 66,000 jobs in August, adding to a loss of 41,000 jobs in July.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2025.<\/p>\n
The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OTTAWA \u2014 Retail sales fell 0.8 per cent to $69.6 billion in July as shoppers spent less at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155115,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46,47251,29496,17506,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-155114","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-grocery-stores","13":"tag-maria-solovieva","14":"tag-retail-sales","15":"tag-statistics-canada"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}