Robert Lussier (Statistics Canada), Dave McDowell, Elton Cryderman

Not Just Where, But What Consumers Buy – The Canadian Experience based on Business Data

Many countries produce sub-annual statistics on retail sales. These data are commonly used to estimate sub-annual consumer expenditures on goods. Traditionally, retail surveys are conducted and disseminated according to the industrial classification of the stores, while consumer expenditures are commodity based. How much has the growth of large format stores altered the commodity mix of sales by industry? For example as supermarkets in Canada grow larger some have become “Main Street in a box” offering a wide range of products. Just how good a proxy is industry for commodity? For some time Canada has monitored, on a monthly and a quarterly basis, over a hundred retail commodity groups. Two surveys are used for this purpose. The paper will describe the two surveys as well as provide some insights into answering the following questions: 1. What do consumers buy – the supply perspective, 2. Over the years, have spending patterns changed? 3. When do Canadians buy their goods – commodity seasonality, 4. What do stores sell? 5. Over the years, are there industry trade groups taking a bigger market share of some commodities?

The information generated are used by a variety of people. They are used by Statistics Canada's System of National Accounts in two ways: first in the production of the Income and Expenditure Accounts every quarter (with respect to the estimates of personal expenditure) and secondly in the production of the Input/Output tables every year. Further constant price estimates, a key component of the CSNA, requires matching prices indexes to commodities. There is much interest in retail trade itself valued at constant prices. This can be best estimated from the commodity perspective.

Retailers as well as analysts who follow the retail industry use the data to calculate market share and market trends. The various levels of government examine the data to monitor the economy and consumer confidence. Finally, the media like the data to address a myriad of questions such as: how much do people spend on necessities, big-ticket items, and discretionary purchases? The authors are not aware of any other countries in the world with such an extensive commodity program. L’INSEE, in France, collects detailed commodity information as part of its annual retail trade survey and the ONS, in England, collects a few broad commodity classes as part of a monthly retail trade survey. The Retail Commodity Program appears to be a distinguished feature of the Canadian Retail Trade Statistics Program.

Session: 5c   Room 2002   Category: Industry studies 2

Paper