Retail Sales YoY

Retail Sales YoY is the 12-month percent change in Canadian retail sales published by Statistics Canada. It comes from the Monthly Retail Trade Survey of retail establishments classified from NAICS 441100 to 459999 across provinces, territories and selected metropolitan areas. The YoY figure compares seasonally adjusted current-dollar sales with the same month 12 months earlier.

It excludes wholesale trade, services, travel and accommodation bookings, tickets and financial transactions. A reading above 0% means sales grew; the series gauges consumer spending and growth. It feeds gross domestic product and Bank of Canada interest rate decisions.

Statistics Canada collects responses by electronic or paper questionnaire with telephone follow-up from about 7 working days after month-end through the next calendar month. It accepts estimates and partial replies and revises them later.

It publishes in The Daily at 8:30 a.m. Eastern, usually in the second month after the reference month. No weekday is fixed; the release schedule governs dates.

Each release shows provincial and industry sales tables with monthly and yearly percent changes. It also shows e-commerce sales and its share, charts and an unofficial advance estimate for the next month.

Revisions update the prior month and the prior 3 adjusted months with each release. A wider annual revision comes with the February release for late data, corrections and updated seasonal factors.

Total sales span 9 subsectors, and core sales excluding motor vehicle and parts dealers plus gasoline stations and fuel vendors show the underlying trend.

• Motor vehicle and parts dealers: new and used cars, other vehicles, parts, tires and accessories, the largest and most volatile subsector.
• Food and beverage retailers: supermarkets, grocery, convenience, specialty food, beer, wine and liquor.
• General merchandise retailers: department-type stores and general goods.
• Gasoline stations and fuel vendors: fuel sales sensitive to prices, often leading headline moves.
• Health and personal care retailers: pharmacies and personal care products.
• Building materials, furniture, clothing and miscellaneous goods: building and garden supplies plus furniture and electronics. It also covers clothing, sporting goods, books and miscellaneous items.

In the February 2024 release published April 24, 2024, sales fell 0.1% to $66.7 billion. Sales were down in 5 of 9 subsectors, led by gasoline stations and fuel vendors down 2.2%. Motor vehicle and parts dealers rose 0.5%, while core sales were unchanged.

General merchandise gains of 1.1% and health gains of 0.4% offset furniture drops of 1.5% and clothing drops of 1.0%. Year on year, total sales grew 1.2% and core sales grew 2.4%, while volume fell 0.3%. E-commerce reached $3.8 billion at 5.7% of total sales, and the unofficial March advance pointed to unchanged sales. The flat headline hid a split, so check core and volume too.

1. Collect and edit: survey sales, online sales and locations from a stratified sample of retailers, plus tax data for small firms. Checks catch errors, and missing replies are imputed from past and administrative data.
2. Estimate totals: replace sampling weights with calibrated weights matching known population totals. Small firms with up to 5% of sales are estimated from goods and services tax files, then weighted sales are summed by industry and region.
3. Adjust for seasons: apply X12-ARIMA to remove seasonal and calendar effects for fair monthly comparison. Adjusted yearly totals are forced to the original series totals.
4. Compute percent changes: subtract the earlier value from the current value, divide by the earlier value and multiply by 100. Monthly change compares with the prior month, and yearly change uses the same month 12 months earlier. For example, 66,670 minus 65,898 divided by 65,898 equals about 1.2% yearly.
5. Deflate to volume: divide current-dollar sales by selling-price indexes by store type, and project missing months with neural networks. Total volume is summed at 2017 constant prices.