Retail sales totaled 649.8 billion U.S. dollars in January, 13.0 percent above January last year, according to the report.
"Retailers tallied up their best month since stimulus payments went out in March of last year even as inflation soared to a 40-year high and Omicron raged," Tim Quinlan and Shannon Seery, economists at Wells Fargo Securities, said in an analysis.
The retail sales data was released about a week after the U.S. Labor Department reported that consumer prices in January continued to rise at the fastest annual pace in almost 40 years.
Noting that the surge in retail sales was "only partly" a function of higher prices, Quinlan and Seery said some special factors are at play.
"We suspect it may have to do with certain merchandise finally becoming available," Quinlan and Seery said, noting that they take the gain in sales volume as a sign of some improvement in strained supply chains as well as resilient demand from consumers.
December's retail sales were revised down from a decrease of 1.9 percent to 2.5 percent, the Commerce Department report noted. Total sales for the November 2021 through January 2022 period were up 16.1 percent from the same period a year ago.
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