OTTAWA \u2014 Retail sales fell in September and early indications suggest a flat reading for October, ahead of the key holiday shopping season.<\/p>\n
Statistics Canada said Friday retail sales were down 0.7 per cent to $69.8 billion in September as sales of new cars fell.<\/p>\n
TD Bank economist Maria Solovieva said retail sales are heading into the holiday season on shaky footing.<\/p>\n
“September recorded a renewed decline, and early signals point to a flat reading in October,” Solovieva wrote in a note to clients.<\/p>\n
“Despite recent volatility, the underlying trend is weaker real spending with major categories now in outright contraction.”<\/p>\n
Statistics Canada reported retail sales in September fell in six of the nine subsectors it tracks.<\/p>\n
Sales for motor vehicle and parts dealers fell 2.9 per cent, weighed down by a 3.6 per cent decline at new car dealers. User car dealers saw a gain of 0.5 per cent, while other motor vehicle dealers dropped 1.6 per cent and automotive parts, accessories and tire retailers fell 0.4 per cent.<\/p>\n
Core retail sales \u2014 which exclude gasoline stations and fuel vendors, along with motor vehicle and parts dealers \u2014 were relatively unchanged in September.<\/p>\n
Sales at building material and garden equipment and supplies dealers fell two per cent, while general merchandise retailers saw a 0.5 per cent decline.<\/p>\n
Food and beverage retailers gained 0.8 per cent, helped by a 3.4 per cent increase at beer, wine and liquor retailers and a 0.3 per cent rise at supermarkets and other grocery retailers.<\/p>\n
In volume terms, overall retail sales dropped 0.8 per cent in September.<\/p>\n
The retail sales report comes ahead of the Bank of Canada’s next interest rate decision set for Dec. 10.<\/p>\n
The central bank cut its policy interest rate in October to 2.25 per cent as members of its governing council felt a weak economy hampered by U.S. tariffs was expected to keep inflation around its two per cent target for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 21, 2025.<\/p>\n
The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OTTAWA \u2014 Retail sales fell in September and early indications suggest a flat reading for October, ahead of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299076,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46,134388,17506,50],"class_list":["post-299075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-economy","tag-motor-vehicle-dealers","tag-retail-sales","tag-statistics-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299075","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=299075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}