Retail Sales Ex Autos MoM

Retail Sales Ex Autos MoM is the month-over-month percent change in retail sales excluding motor vehicle and parts dealers. Statistics Canada (StatCan), Canada's national statistical office, produces it through the Monthly Retail Trade Survey, a monthly sample of about 10,000 retailer groups. The figure is in current dollars, which means sales are not adjusted for inflation. It excludes car dealers because their swings can flip the headline sign.

It feeds into GDP. The Bank of Canada uses it partly when setting rates. It covers stores coded 441100 to 459999 in the NAICS frame. The series starts in January 1991, and its current design reflects the 2004 redesign.

Data are collected by questionnaire, phone and follow-up. Collection starts about 7 working days after the measured month ends and continues through the next calendar month. Results appear in The Daily, StatCan's release bulletin, at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time about 7 weeks after the measured month.

Each release shows provincial splits, notes for selected cities, e-commerce share, inflation-adjusted volume change and quarterly totals when a quarter ends. Raw data are revised for the prior month and once a year with February. Seasonally adjusted data are revised for 3 months, and the advance estimate stays unofficial because it rests on partial responses. There is no target level.

Ex-autos covers 8 of 9 retail subsectors, or store groups, after removing motor vehicle and parts dealers.

• Food and beverage retailers: supermarkets, grocery, convenience, specialty food, beer, wine and liquor stores, the largest core driver by weight of sales.
• General merchandise retailers: broad non-specialty stores selling many product lines.
• Health and personal care retailers: pharmacies and personal care stores.
• Gasoline stations and fuel vendors: kept in ex-autos, removed only in the core cut.
• Furniture, electronics, appliances, building material and garden retailers: durable home and housing-linked goods.
• Clothing, sporting goods, hobby, books and miscellaneous retailers: apparel, shoes, jewelry, sports, books and cannabis stores.

In the June 2024 release, published August 23, 2024, headline sales fell 0.3% to $65.7 billion. Sales were down in 4 of 9 subsectors and were led by motor vehicle and parts dealers. Motor vehicle and parts dealers dropped 2.1%. New car dealers led the fall, down 2.9%, followed by used car dealers, down 0.6%.

Other motor vehicle dealers partly offset this, up 2.5%. Ex-autos still rose 0.3%. Core sales, which also exclude fuel, rose 0.4%, led by food and beverage retailers, up 1.2%. The lesson is that volatile autos can flip the headline sign, so ex-autos shows underlying demand more clearly.

1. Collect: Surveyed sales come by questionnaire, phone or best estimates, with partial answers accepted, plus GST tax data for the smallest firms.
2. Weight and estimate: Initial weights, or inverse selection odds, are recalibrated to known population totals, then weighted sales are summed by industry and area. Non-responses are imputed, or filled, from history or admin data.
3. Ex-autos aggregate: Subtract autos from the total in current dollars, or unadjusted sales, to get the ex-autos row.
4. Seasonal adjustment: Raw data are extended 1 year with an ARIMA model. Seasonal effects are removed by the X-12-ARIMA method. Yearly adjusted totals are then forced to raw totals.
5. MoM rate: Divide the change from the prior adjusted month by that month and multiply by 100, to 1 decimal. In June 2024 the series rose from $48,354m to $48,496m, giving about 0.3%.
6. Volume: Deflate current-dollar sales by consumer price indexes to get quantity without price effects.