Wholesale trade, May 2025

Wholesale sales (excluding petroleum, petroleum products, and other hydrocarbons and excluding oilseed and grain) edged up 0.1% to $84.2 billion in May. Sales increased in five of the seven subsectors, representing 60.4% of total wholesale sales. The largest gain came from the personal and household goods subsector (+3.5%), followed by the motor vehicle and motor vehicle parts and accessories subsector (+2.2%). Wholesale sales were 1.8% higher in May compared with the same month one year earlier.

In volume terms, wholesale sales (excluding petroleum, petroleum products, and other hydrocarbons and excluding oilseed and grain) increased 0.2% in May.

Chart 1: Wholesale sales (excluding petroleum, petroleum products, and other hydrocarbons and oilseed and grain) increase in May

Impact of Canada–U.S. trade tensions

Feedback from respondents for May indicated that the impact of trade tensions between Canada and the United States eased slightly in the month. The share of respondents indicating that the ongoing trade issues had an impact on their businesses fell from 43.6% in April to 36.9% in May.

In May, the percentage of businesses affected by these tensions was highest in the personal and household goods subsector. At the wholesale trade sector level, the most cited impacts were higher prices (26.5%) and increased expenses for raw materials, shipping or labour (15.1%).

Personal and household goods lead sales increases in May

After three consecutive monthly declines, sales in the personal and household goods subsector rose 3.5% to $12.4 billion in May, leading the wholesale sales increase. Gains were observed in all but one of the subsector's industry groups. On a seasonally adjusted basis, the textile, clothing and footwear (+14.4%) and home entertainment equipment and household appliance (+15.5%) industry groups contributed the most to the growth in the subsector.

The second-largest increase reported in May was in the motor vehicle and motor vehicle parts and accessories subsector (+2.2%), driven by the motor vehicle industry group (+2.9%).

In May, the increase in wholesale sales was largely offset by lower sales in the machinery, equipment and supplies subsector (-3.3%). The farm, lawn and garden machinery and equipment (-17.1%), and the construction, forestry, mining, and industrial machinery, equipment and supplies (-3.9%) industry groups contributed the most to the decrease in the machinery, equipment and supplies subsector.

British Columbia leads provincial sales increase

Three provinces reported higher sales in May, led by British Columbia.

After declining for three consecutive months, sales in British Columbia increased 4.1% to $8.1 billion in May. Three of the seven subsectors reported higher sales, driven by the building material and supplies subsector (+12.3%).

In May, Ontario (+0.6%) posted the second-largest provincial increase. The growth was solely concentrated in the motor vehicle and motor vehicle parts and accessories subsector (+7.9%).

Conversely, Quebec (-1.5%) posted the largest decline in May. Sales decreased in four of the seven subsectors, with the motor vehicle and motor vehicle parts and accessories subsector (-10.8%) reporting the largest decline.

Inventories increase in May

Wholesale inventories (excluding petroleum, petroleum products, and other hydrocarbons and excluding oilseed and grain) were up 0.8% to $130.3 billion in May.

In May, inventories increased in four of the seven subsectors, led by the building material and supplies (+2.1%) and the personal and household goods (+2.2%) subsectors.

The inventory-to-sales ratio edged up from 1.54 in April to 1.55 in May. This ratio is a measure of the time (in months) required to exhaust inventories if sales were to remain at their current levels.

Table 1: Wholesale merchants' sales by industry—seasonally adjusted

Table 2: Wholesale merchants' sales by province and territory—seasonally adjusted (excluding petroleum, petroleum products, and other hydrocarbons and oilseed and grain)

Table 3: Wholesale merchants' inventories by industry—seasonally adjusted