June Store Sales Flat

Preliminary estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau show that June 2002 bookstore sales were flat, with sales for the month at $1.20 billion. Sales for all of retail were down 3.5% in the month. The June report did have some good news; sales in May were revised upward, resulting in a 3.4% sales increase in the month, compared to an original estimate of an 0.8% gain. For the first half of the year, bookstore sales rose 6.1%, to $7.90 billion, bettering the 2.9% increase for the entire retail segment.