businesses inventories or products waiting to be sold declined by 01 in march the government said tuesday economists polled by the wall street journal had forecast no change shrinking inventories are a negative sign and depress gross domestic product but inventory growth is still up 65 over the past year the government said sales fell 11 in the month the ratio of inventories to sales moved up a tick to 139 that’s how many months it would take to sell all the inventory on hand while the ratio is still fairly low it’s been on a recent uptrend that can happen when demand slows potentially leaving companies stuck with unwanted goods that they have to discount to sell