Key Takeaways
- Retail sales rose for a 13th straight month in October 2026 to $561.7 billion, up 0.15% from September and 3.57% from a year earlier, according to the CNBC/NRF Retail Monitor released November 11.
- Furniture and home furnishings was one of only two categories to fall in a year, down 2.62%, while building and garden supplies rose 1.73% to $44.4 billion.
- Shoppers are spending on the homes they already have and holding off on furnishing homes they just bought, in the same month existing-home sales hit their lowest pace since August 2010.
- The figures are dollars, not items sold: October’s 0.15% monthly spending gain was smaller than the same month’s 0.4% rise in consumer prices.
American shoppers kept spending in October, but they did not spend like people who had just moved. The National Retail Federation’s CNBC/NRF Retail Monitor release for October 2026, published November 11, put total retail sales at $561.7 billion, a 13th straight monthly gain.
That total excludes automobile dealers and gasoline stations to reduce volatility, and it rose 0.15% from September and 3.57% from October 2025, both seasonally adjusted. September’s total was $560.8 billion, up 0.28% in the month and 4.05% in the year.
NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said: “Retail sales edged higher in October as a strong Halloween season and early winter holiday promotions pulled demand forward.” He added: “Households are managing budgets carefully, timing purchases around special offers and sales events in order to stretch their dollars. Retailers continue to offer promotions and value pricing to keep everyday items and holiday gifts affordable.”
13 Straight Months of Gains, With a Slower Edge
The streak is real, and so is the slowdown inside it. October’s monthly gain of 0.15% on the total measure was a little over half of September’s 0.28%, and the year-over-year gains eased on both readings.
| CNBC/NRF Retail Monitor | October 2026 | Month over month | Year over year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total retail sales (excludes auto dealers and gas stations) | $561.7 billion | +0.15% | +3.57% |
| Total retail sales, September 2026 | $560.8 billion | +0.28% | +4.05% |
| Core retail sales (also excludes restaurants) | $454.2 billion | +0.26% | +3.36% |
| Core retail sales, September 2026 | $453.1 billion | +0.27% | +3.73% |
| First 10 months of 2026 | Total +5.75% | Core +5.63% |
One caution belongs on top of every dollar figure in this report. These are sales dollars, seasonally adjusted, not counts of items carried out of stores.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics put October’s rise in consumer prices at 0.4% in the month, larger than the Retail Monitor’s 0.15% monthly spending gain. A household can spend more dollars in October and still take home less than it did in September.
The monitor itself is built differently from the government’s retail survey. It is powered by Affinity Solutions data from a panel of roughly 120 million debit and credit cards, weighted to reflect the makeup of U.S. consumers and projected to match U.S. Census Bureau retail sales totals, and NRF notes that it does not need to be revised monthly or annually.
The Housing Split: Fixing the Home You Have, Not Furnishing the One You Just Bought
The most useful numbers in the release for a real estate reader sit in the sector table. Nine of the eleven categories rose from a year earlier, and the two that fell tell a housing story.
| Retail sector, October 2026 | Year over year |
|---|---|
| Electronics and appliances | +9.3% |
| Unallocated non-store sales | +6.61% |
| Miscellaneous retail | +5.44% |
| Food services and drinking places | +4.48% |
| Health and personal care | +4.06% |
| Clothing and accessories | +3.18% |
| General merchandise | +2.16% |
| Building and garden supplies | +1.73% |
| Grocery and beverage | +1.68% |
| Sporting goods, hobby, music and bookstores | -0.44% |
| Furniture and home furnishings | -2.62% |
Building and garden supplies took in $44.4 billion in October, up 0.75% from September and 1.73% from a year earlier. That is money spent on homes people already own: repairs, upkeep, and projects that cannot wait for a better mortgage rate.
Furniture is the opposite purchase. A sofa, a dining set, and a bedroom suite are bought in the first months after a move, and those moves are not happening: existing-home sales fell 5.5% in October to a 3.75 million annual pace, the lowest since August 2010.
Financing explains the freeze behind both lines. Mortgage rates fell for a fourth straight week to 7.11% on Freddie Mac’s survey, still high enough that owners stay put, fix what they have, and leave the furniture store for the next household that actually closes.
How a Beginner Investor Uses a Split Like This
The fresh insight is not that consumers are strong or weak. It is that their spending has rotated toward the housing stock that already exists, and away from the turnover the market keeps waiting for.
- Read dollars, not volume. Total spending rose 0.15% in a month when consumer prices rose 0.4%. Before treating any retail headline as demand growth, check whether the gain beat that month’s inflation reading.
- Budget a rental for upkeep, not turnover. Building and garden spending rose 1.73% in a year to $44.4 billion while furniture fell 2.62%. Tenants and owners alike are paying to maintain homes, so a landlord’s repair and refresh budget deserves more room than a furnishing budget built for a quick resale.
- Watch what tenants are charging. This spending is landing on plastic at high prices: revolving credit surged 14.5% in September and the average credit card APR assessed interest was 22.36%. Strong retail dollars and strained household budgets can be true at the same time, and rent collection feels the second one.
- Use the Census report as the confirmation test. The Census Bureau’s advance retail sales report for October is scheduled for November 17. If the government’s survey confirms the monitor’s small monthly gain and soft home categories, the rotation is real data, not one panel’s quirk.
- Mark the holiday forecast, and its limits. NRF forecasts retail sales in November and December will grow 4.2% over 2025 to $1.013 trillion, with the season defined as November 1 through December 31. A strong holiday for retailers would support consumer-facing rents, but it would not by itself unfreeze home sales.
- Do not compare this series backward carelessly. The Retail Monitor changed methodology beginning with September data, attributing store-based retailers’ online sales to their categories, and NRF says the new month-over-month and year-over-year figures are not directly comparable with reports published before September.
Thirteen straight months of gains say the consumer has not folded. A 2.62% drop in furniture, in the weakest home-sales month in sixteen years, says the consumer has not moved either, and for a beginner investor the second fact is the one that prices the next deal.
Data source: National Retail Federation, CNBC/NRF Retail Monitor for October 2026, released November 11, 2026; sector year-over-year figures and building and garden dollar total as published in the monitor’s sector data and corroborated by HomePage News and HBS Dealer, November 11, 2026; NRF 2026 holiday forecast, released October 15, 2026.
