Monthly & Annual Retail Trade

Advance Monthly Retail Trade Report

The December 2011 Advance Monthly Sales for Retail Trade and Food Services report was released on January 12, 2012 at 8:30 a.m., and available as:

• Full Publication in PDF [80KB]
• Current Publication Tables in Excel Format: Table 1 [64KB] | Table 2 [44KB] | Table 3 [36KB]
• Current Publication Tables in Text Format: Table 1 | Table 2 | Table 3
• Time Series (Adjusted Sales Data/Seasonal Factors—1992 to present)

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Monthly Retail Trade Report

The November 2011 Monthly Retail Trade and Food Services report was released on January 12, 2012 at 8:45 a.m. (Sales) and 10:15 a.m. (Inventories), and available as:

• Retail and Food Services Sales: Excel (1992-present) [496KB]
• Retail Inventories and Inventories/Sales Ratios: Excel (1992-present) [304KB]
• Adjustment Factors for Seasonal and Other Variations of Monthly Estimates: Sales | Inventories
• Reliability of Monthly Estimates: Sales | Inventories
• Annual Revision of Monthly Retail and Food Services: Sales and Inventories--January 1992 through March 2011

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Latest Annual Retail Trade Report

With the release of the 2010 Annual Retail Trade Survey (ARTS) estimates in March 2012, estimates for 2009 and all previous years will be revised to reflect improvements in the coverage of nonemployer businesses (i.e., businesses with no paid employees) that were implemented with the release of the 2009 Nonemployer Statistics. For additional information on these improvements and their effect on the nonemployer totals, see the Nonemployer Statistics home page at http://www.census.gov/econ/nonemployer/index.html. Revisions to published estimates may also occur because of corrections made to previously reported data and the replacement of imputed data with reported data obtained from the company. Because ARTS does not publish employer plus nonemployer estimates of total expenses or accounts receivable, estimates for these data items will not be affected by the changes implemented with the release of the 2009 Nonemployer Statistics.

The 2009 Annual Retail Trade Report was released on March 31, 2011. A Summary of Changes provides comparability with previous surveys.

• Annual Retail Trade Survey—2009:
  Sales: Excel (1992-2009) [56KB] | PDF (1998-2009) [19KB]
  Inventories: Excel (1992-2009) [37KB] | PDF (1998-2009) [12KB]
  Purchases: Excel (1992-2009) [39KB] | PDF (1998-2009) [13KB]
  Total Operating Expenses: Excel (2006-2009) [39KB] | PDF (2006-2009) [13KB]
  Revised 2007 Detailed Operating Expenses, including Accommodation and Food Services: Excel [29KB] | PDF [46KB]
  Gross Margin: Excel (1993-2009) [39KB] | PDF (1998-2009) [13KB]
  Gross Margin as a Percentage of Sales: Excel (1993-2009) [40KB] | PDF (1998-2009) [12KB]
  Accounts Receivable: Excel (2004-2009) [34KB] | PDF (2004-2009) [12KB]
  Per Capita Sales: Excel (2000-2009) [32KB] | PDF (2000-2009) [11KB]
  Inventories Held Inside and Outside the U.S.: Excel (2004-2009) [33KB] | PDF (2004-2009) [11KB]
• Annual Accommodation and Food Services—2009:
  Sales: Excel (1992-2009) [30KB] | PDF (1998-2009) [9KB]
• Measures of Sampling Variability—2009:
  Sales, Inventories, Purchases, Total Operating Expenses, Gross Margin, and Gross Margin as a Percentage of Sales: Excel [128KB] | PDF [15KB]
  End-of-Year Accounts Receivable: Excel [30KB] | PDF [10KB]
  Inventories Held Inside and Outside the U.S.: Excel [30KB] | PDF [10KB]
  Detailed Operating Expenses: Excel [25KB] | PDF [43KB]

Latest Quarterly E-Commerce Report

The 3rd Quarter 2011 Retail E-Commerce Sales Report was released on November 17, 2011, and available as:

• Full 3Q 2011 Publication in PDF [64KB]
• Individual 3Q 2011 Tables available in Excel Format: Table 1 [24KB] | Table 2 [20KB]
  Individual 3Q 2011 Tables available as delimited text: Table 1 | Table 2

• Time Series available in Excel Format: Adjusted Sales [28KB] | Not Adjusted Sales [28KB]
  Time Series available as delimited text: Adjusted Sales | Not Adjusted Sales

• Explanation of Benchmarking Revisions for E-Commerce Estimates