Monthly Retail Trade

A sample revision is the process used to re-design and re-select the samples for many of the Census Bureau’s surveys of the retail, wholesale, and service industries. This process is performed to:

• ensure each sample is representative of its target population
• improve the efficiency of each sample
• incorporate updates to the industry classification structure
• expand industry coverage of the survey
• update questions and instructions to obtain more accurate data
• redistribute burden for small and medium size businesses

Sample revisions are performed approximately every two and a half to three years.

Advance Monthly Retail Trade Survey estimates based on the new sample were released with the annual revision release on May 25th, 2018. The May Advance Monthly Sales for Retail Trade and Food Services Report released on June 14th, 2018 is based on the new sample.

The size of the current Advance Monthly Retail Trade Survey sample is approximately 5,500 employer firms. The size of the prior Advance Monthly Retail Trade Survey sample was approximately 4,700 firms.

Yes. Estimates from different samples have been linked to be on a comparable basis.

Effective with the Annual Revision release on May 25th, 2018, advance monthly retail estimates have been published on a 2012 NAICS basis. Time series affected by the definition changes were restated to the beginning of the time series. For a complete list of the series that were restated, please review our summary of NAICS restatement and publication table changes.