Dive Brief:

• January wholesale sales dropped 3.1%, pushing inventories to rise .3% and wholesale inventories of products not including autos to rise .2%, according to a report by the U.S. Commerce Department released Tuesday. 

• Many economists expected inventories to remain flat, according to a Reuters poll.

• If January’s wholesale sales pace holds it would take 1.27 months to clear inventories, the longest since July 2009, up from 1.22 months according to December’s sales pace.

Dive Insight:

This report could be the result of bad weather and ongoing inventory backlogs at West Coast ports from a months-long labor dispute. And sales to Europe, where many economies are struggling somewhat, and Asia, which has seen slower demand, could be contributing to the slowdown in this measure of gross domestic product.