The harsh weather that inflicted much of the north in February also cooled bookstore sales in the month. According to preliminary estimates released Tuesday morning by the U.S. Census Bureau, bookstore sales fell 2.2% in February compared to February 2014, dropping to $716 million. Bookstore sales fell by less than 1% in January and for the first two months of 2015 store sales were $2.21 billion, down 1.3% from the comparable period in 2014.
For the entire retail segment, February sales rose 1.3% and sales for the first two months of the year were up 2.3% over the same period in 2014.
