U.S. retail sales picked up in March, helped by a surge in gas station receipts that masked mixed results in other large spending categories as consumers contend with decades-high inflation.

NEW YORK — Americans overlooked shortages, spiking prices and uncertainty over the omicron variant to break spending records during the critical holiday shopping season. But figures released Jan. 14 show that after spending robustly early in the holiday season, consumers sharply slowed their purchases from November to December.

Holiday sales rose at the fastest pace in 17 years, even as shoppers grappled with higher prices, product shortages and a raging new COVID-19 variant in the last few weeks of the season, according to one spending measure.

Target is an early winner of the U.S. holiday shopping season. The big-box chain increased sales approximately 10% in November, according to Bloomberg Second Measure, which analyzes anonymized U.S. consumer transactions to measure revenue.

U.S. retail sales rose in October for a third month, signaling households continue to spend even with the fastest inflation in decades.

NEW YORK — Americans continued to spend at a solid clip in September even while facing sticker shock in grocery aisles, car lots and restaurants as snarled global supply chains slow the flow of goods.

U.S. retail sales rose unexpectedly in August as a pickup in purchases across most categories more than offset weakness at auto dealers, showing resilient consumer demand for merchandise.

U.S. retail sales rose unexpectedly in June, reflecting fairly broad gains across spending categories and wrapping up a solid quarter for household demand.

U.S. retail sales declined in May, after a stimulus-related splurge in the prior two months, suggesting consumers are starting to shift more of their spending to services as the economy reopens.

NEW YORK — Retail sales in the U.S. were flat in April, after soaring in March, when many Americans received $1,400 stimulus checks that boosted spending.