OCR Text |
Show Utah Retail Store Sales Increase Measured in dollar volume of sales, grocery stores were the largest retailers in the State with 1977 sales of $774 million, followed by new car dealers with $745 million, and department stores with $454 million. These three kinds of business accounted ac-counted lor 47.6 percent of the State's total sales by retailers. The 1977 payroll of retail stores in the State amounted to $467 million, up 73.1 percent from 1972. Hardware stores showed the largest increase in payroll, with an increase of 204.8 percent. Data from the 1977 Census of Retail Trade show that Utah's 9,920 retail stores had sales totaling $4.1 billion, an increase of 75.9 percent over sales reported in 1972 when the last such census was taken, according to the Bureau of the Census, U.S. Department Depart-ment of Commerce. Among the kinds of business for which data are presented for the State, the percentage change in sales ranged from an increase of 164.3 percent for hardware stores to an increase of 11.1 percent , for variety .stores. |