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Quarterly Retail Commodity Survey, fourth quarter 2016

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Text - Selected CANSIM tables Related information Previous release PDF (126 KB)

Released: 2017-04-13

Retail sales in the fourth quarter of 2016 rose 3.2% compared to the previous year, reaching $141.1 billion.

Spending on food accounted for 17.4% or $24.5 billion of total retail sales in the fourth quarter. The largest categories were fresh fruit and vegetables ($3.8 billion) and fresh meat and poultry ($3.4 billion).

Sales of soft drinks and alcoholic beverages accounted for $8.3 billion, with alcoholic beverages being the largest contributor at $6.8 billion.

Sales of new and used motor vehicles amounted to $24.2 billion. Almost $16.9 billion of new motor vehicles were sold, of which 73.9% were minivans, sport utility vehicles and light trucks. Used motor vehicles sales totalled $7.3 billion and used minivans, sport utility vehicles, and light trucks accounted for 59.9% of this total.

Home furniture, furnishings, housewares, appliances and electronics sales totalled $15.0 billion in the fourth quarter of 2016. Home electronics sales accounted for roughly a third of this total.

Sales of automotive and household fuels totalled $12.5 billion in the fourth quarter. An additional $4.8 billion was spent on motor vehicle parts, accessories and supplies.

Clothing and accessories sales made up $9.5 billion. This category was led by sales of women's clothing and accessories (54.6%), followed by men's clothing and accessories (33.7%), children's and infants' clothing and accessories (10.0%) and unisex clothing (1.8%).

Table 1
Sales by type of commodity, all retail stores – Seasonally unadjusted

  Note to readers

Beginning with the release of the third quarter of 2016, the data published from the Retail Commodity Survey reflect significant changes to the retail commodity program.

Retail commodity data are now collected and published using the new product classification standard the North American Product Classification System, which provides more product detail than the commodity classification system formerly used in the Retail Commodity Survey.

As a new classification system has been implemented, it is not currently possible to compare quarterly estimates with data from the previous year. Historical retail commodity estimates will be available in July 2017, in CANSIM table 080-0035. Table 080-0035 replaces table 080-0022, which has been terminated.

Retail commodity estimates continue to be benchmarked to estimates from the Monthly Retail Trade Survey.

Contact information

For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; STATCAN.infostats-infostats.STATCAN@canada.ca) or Media Relations (613-951-4636; STATCAN.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.STATCAN@canada.ca).

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