That’s compared to August a year ago, the Census Bureau says.
Sales totaled $13.05 billion, up from $12.4 billion a year earlier. Inventory levels in August were unchanged, but the inventory/sales ratio shrank to .29 from 1.36.
For the economy as a whole, August 2018 sales of merchant wholesalers were $511.1 billion, up 0.8% (+/- 0.4 percent) from last month. End-of-month inventories were $642.7 billion, up 1% (+/- 0.2 percent) from last month.