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Grouping stores based on the relative expensiveness of their primary offerings during the 2003 holiday season
Relative expensiveness¹	Holiday items primarily offered²	Store type
more expensive	furniture, household appliances	Furniture stores
	home furnishings and decorating products	Furniture stores
	television & audio/video equipment, household appliances	Home furnishing stores
	computers and computer components, cameras, software	Electronics and appliance stores
medium expensive	clothing	Clothing stores
	clothing accessories, shoes, holiday jewellery	Shoe accessories, and jewellery stores
	cosmetics and fragrances, personal health and beauty aid products	Pharmacies and personal care stores
less expensive	wine, alcoholic beverages	Beer, wine and liquor stores Sporting goods, hobby, music and book stores³
less expensive	toys, games and hobby supplies, pre-recorded audio/video tapes & discs
General merchandise stores offer most of the holiday items, ranging from more expensive to less expensive		Department stores
		Other general merchandise stores

1. Due to a lack of exhaustive pricing information for all holiday items, they are grouped into three broad categories of more, medium and less expensive holiday items based on their relative expensiveness.

2. Based on commodity composition by trade groups, at least two thirds, and usually over 80%, of sales of a given store type in the last quarter are generated from the sale of the listed holiday items. In addition, the listed holiday items must belong to the same expensiveness group and show a sales peak in the 4th quarter. For example, over 80% of furniture stores’ quarterly sales were generated from the sales of furniture and household appliances. Furniture and household appliances had 12% above the average level of sales in the 4th quarter of 2003 and they are relatively more expensive than such holiday items as clothing, cosmetics, toys, pre-recorded CDs and DVDs in general. Therefore, furniture and household appliances are defined as more expensive holiday items and furniture stores are grouped into more expensive item stores.

3. Sporting goods, hobby, music and book stores offer both medium expensive holiday items such as specialised clothing, ski equipment and less expensive holiday items such as toys, games, pre-recorded CDs and DVDs, and books. Since less expensive holiday items accounted for more than two thirds of the 4th quarter sales in 2003 while medium expensive holiday items accounted for about a quarter of the holiday sales, sporting goods, hobby, music and book stores are categorised into less expensive item stores.

Sources: Monthly Retail Trade Survey and Quarterly Retail Commodity Survey.