The Commerce Department announced today that retail sales in September experienced their biggest monthly drop in three years, CNNMoney reported.

According to the report, retail sales decreased 1.2 percent in September, which is nearly double the 0.7 percent decline economists expected. Auto sales accounted for about half of the decline; dealers saw a 3.8 percent plunge in sales. Yet when auto sales are taken out of the equation, the economy still fared worse than expected. Without autos, sales fell 0.6 percent, three times the 0.2 percent economists had predicted.

“The numbers are pretty terrible,” said Scott Hoyt, senior director of consumer economics at Moody’s economy.com.

Hoyt said, “This report is clearly consistent with a recession story.”

When broken down by category, most of the numbers appear gloomy. For September, sales of furniture and home furnishings declined 2.3 percent, electronic purchases declined 1.5 percent and department store sales declined 1.5 percent.

Hoyt said the only thing consumers didn’t cut back on were health-care products and gasoline, but noted that with this type of decline, gasoline retailers could see their sales drop in October.

Retail sales have not fallen this drastically since a 1.4 percent decrease in August 2005, which was recalculated later to a 0.4 percent decline.

“Consumers were clearly not spending,” Hoyt said.