Retail sales edged up 0.1% to $59.9 billion in February. This was the fourth increase in the last five months. Higher sales at clothing and clothing accessories stores (+15.1%) and gasoline stations (+6.2%) were offset by lower sales at motor vehicle and parts dealers (-5.1%).
Sales were up in 6 of the 11 subsectors, representing 47.2% of retail trade.
Core retail sales—which exclude sales at gasoline stations and motor vehicle and parts dealers—increased 1.4%.
In volume terms, retail sales were down 0.4% in February.
Given the rapidly evolving economic situation, Statistics Canada is providing an advance estimate of retail sales, which suggests that sales increased 1.4% in March 2022. Owing to its early nature, this figure will be revised. This unofficial estimate was calculated based on responses received from 36.8% of companies surveyed. The average final response rate for the survey over the previous 12 months has been 92.5%.
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