Retail sales in Puerto Rico rose 2.5% to $3.2B in November
For a second consecutive month, retail sales reflected growth in their annual rate after Hurricane Fiona struck Puerto Rico in September. In the most recent retail sales survey for the month of November 2022, sales reached to $3.2 billion, a 2.5% increase when compared with the same month in 2021.
“These indicators are a sign of our ability to cope with the circumstances we were facing in that period. Businesses have begun to identify new marketing strategies and product availability at the best possible prices,” Department of Economic Development and Commerce (DDEC, in Spanish) Secretary Manuel Cidre said.
“This is to keep costs under control to avoid as much as possible transferring said operational costs to consumers,” he said.
The survey, carried out by the Business Intelligence Division of the DDEC’s Auxiliary Division for Strategic Sectors, revealed that the economic sectors that reported the highest increases in November were: restaurants and bars (+16.3%); shoe stores (+16.1%); supermarkets and alcoholic beverage stores (+7.6%); pharmacies and drugstores (+6.5%); and electronics stores (+6.3%). Department stores and other miscellaneous items reported a 6% increase. These represented 33.6% of all sales during November.
The sectors that reflected drops in their sales were: sports stores, musical instruments and entertainment (-25.9%); yard and garden equipment (-19.4%); dealers of new and used motor vehicles (-15.3%); jewelry, luggage and leather goods stores (-7.5%); and fuel distributors (2.2%).
Within the segment of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), accumulated sales during November reached $925.6 million, an increase of 7.8% at an annual rate, according to the report.
The accrued value of retail sales during the first 11 months of calendar year 2022 (January-November), shows an increase of 0.8%, to $33.7 billion, compared with the same period of the prior calendar year, 2021.
