Kamalesh Rao

Purchase, N.Y. -- Excluding auto sales, total retail sales in April 2011 grew by 8.8% year-over-year, stronger than March’s growth rate, and substantially higher than the average 7.1% year-to-year growth rate of the previous quarter, according to MasterCard Advisors’ SpendingPulse, a macroeconomic report tracking national retail and service sales. While spending on gasoline has helped drive overall sales figures to some extent, retail sales ex-gasoline show few signs of abating. Seasonally adjusted retail sales excluding both autos and gasoline were up by 1.4% in April, the fourth straight month of growth. “We have not seen this sort of sustained