Finance & Taxation | Store Operations
Retail Fast Facts: Retail sales in Canada continue to grow
View Retail Fast Facts: November 2018
StatCan posted the Retail numbers for September today, indicating a +0.2% growth in sales – a growth number that trounced the forecasts by the big Canadian banks (-0.1%), with nearly every bank predicting no growth for September. Focusing in on Core-Retail, the numbers are even better – locking in at a solid +0.4% growth for the month of September. The greatest gains were in Supermarkets (+1.7%) as gasoline prices translated to lower costs to stock shelves. Back-to-school purchases translated to a healthy increase for clothing sales (+0.8%) in September.
Retail Council of Canada has been estimating that the annual growth this year is around 3%. Retail Sales have been trending in that direction, with year-to-date Core-Retail Sales being up 2.8%.
Sales comparison by category vs year ago |
Sept 2017
(in Millions of $CAD) |
Sept 2018
(in Millions of $CAD) |
% Change VYA |
|---|---|---|---|
| Retail Trade | 49,090.1 | 50,932.2 | 3.8% |
| Core Retail | 30,638.4 | 31,678.6 | 3.4% |
 Furniture and home furnishings stores |
1,554.3 | 1,532.9 | -1.4% |
 Electronics and appliance stores |
1,295.6 | 1,387.3 | 7.1% |
 Building material and garden equipment and supplies dealers |
3,151.2 | 3,082.2 | -2.2% |
 Food and beverage stores |
10,125.3 | 10,528.3 | 4.0% |
 Health and personal care stores |
3,881.5 | 3,916.1 | 0.9% |
 Clothing and clothing accessories stores |
2,748.4 | 2,933.9 | 6.7% |
 Sporting goods, hobby, book and music stores |
1,050.1 | 1,069.4 | 1.8% |
 General merchandise stores |
5,637.4 | 5,908.1 | 4.8% |
Retail Fast Facts is a monthly report from Retail Council of Canada that consolidates Statistics Canada data and presents a summary of key retail performance measures by sales sector, province, changes in price indices and employment. To download the full report and find out more detailed information about this month’s retail sales performance click on the link at the top of this page.
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