Retail Sales MoM

Retail Sales MoM is the monthly % change in Japanese retail sales on a seasonally adjusted index, which removes normal seasonal and calendar effects. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, known as METI, compiles it through the Current Survey of Commerce. It is a monthly national survey running since 1953 and monthly since 1959, covering about 26,500 outlets and firms nationwide.

It covers goods sales including tax and online sales from the 1st to the final day. It excludes restaurants, services and prices, and serves as a supply side gauge of consumption.

Sales cover the 1st to the final day of the reference month, with forms due on the 15th of the next month. Month-end is the reference date. Each reference month gets 2 releases: a preliminary around the final days of the next month at 8:50 Japan time.

A final follows around the 15th of the month after at 13:30, with late returns folded in and yearly seasonal factors reset each January. The yearbook appears around 30 June at 13:30, January finals revise a full year and fix seasonal factors, and next year dates appear each December. Each release also shows wholesale sales, store formats, original and adjusted indices and quarter-end inventories, with past months corrected in finals.

Retail sales rise or fall with broad industry groups and store formats that sell everyday and durable goods.

• Food and beverage retail: daily food and drinks, including convenience store estimates, the largest group.
• General merchandise and textiles retail: department type outlets and clothing and accessory shops.
• Motor vehicle and machinery retail: car and motorcycle dealers plus home appliance stores excluding cars and bicycles, including large electronics chains.
• Fuel retail: petrol stations selling fuel for vehicles.
• Pharma, cosmetics and other retail: drugstores, cosmetics and other goods, including drugstore and home centre estimates.
• Non-store retail: sellers with no physical store selling online and by catalog.

The April 2021 release published 31 May 2021 shows why both rates matter. Retail sales were 12,200 billion yen, up 12.0% from a year earlier but down 4.5% from March on a seasonally adjusted basis. The yearly jump flattered demand because April 2020 had fallen 13.9% yearly and 10.3% monthly on an adjusted basis.

Gains were uneven: textiles rose 63.7% yearly, general goods rose 43.6% and autos rose 27.2%, while food fell 0.2% and pharma fell 1.6%. Department stores jumped 153.1% yearly while supermarkets slipped 0.2%, with all store and same store sales shown side by side.

1. Matched reporting: In each industry and staff size group, use only outlets reporting both months and divide current sales by prior sales for a ratio. For example, 8 stores selling 40 million yen then 42 million give a ratio of 1.05.
2. Scale up: Multiply the prior month total by the ratio to estimate sales, so 800 million becomes 840 million, then add groups for industry sales. Department stores and supermarkets are added at full enumerated value, while convenience, electronics, drugstore and home centre estimates are folded into their goods groups.
3. Index and yearly comparison: Set sales against 2020 as 100 for the original index. Adjust yearly rates with link coefficients, which bridge gaps when samples rotate, to keep past values comparable.
4. Seasonal adjustment: Adjust the original index with X-12-ARIMA, a United States Census method that removes season, weekday, holiday, and leap year effects.
5. Growth rates with example: MoM is % change in the adjusted index from the prior month. YoY compares original values with the same month a year earlier; for example, 103.5 rising to 104.0 gives MoM of about 0.5%.