Annual retail trade

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Store and non-store retailers' annual operating revenue rose 3.8% in 2010 to $466.3 billion. More than half of the increase was the result of increased revenue for gasoline stations and new car dealers.

Cost of goods sold, which accounted for just over three-quarters of retailers' expenses, rose 3.9% to $338.7 billion in 2010. Total operating expenses, about half of which is labour remuneration, were up 2.2% in 2010 to $103.8 billion.

Gross margins for all retailers as a share of operating revenue narrowed slightly to 27.4% in 2010. This reflects cost of goods sold increasing at a slightly higher rate than operating revenue, most notably among gasoline stations and new car dealers.

Canadian retailers earned operating profits of 5.1% as a share of operating revenue in 2010, up from 4.9% in 2009 as revenues rose more than expenses. Operating profits as a ratio of revenue increased in 9 of the 12 subsectors in 2010. Beer, wine and liquor stores and clothing and clothing accessories stores recorded the largest increases compared with the previous year.

Operating profits as a ratio of operating revenue increased 2.7 percentage points for beer, wine and liquor stores to 31.4% in 2010. Clothing and clothing accessories stores registered a 9.0% share of profits to revenue, up from 7.9% in 2009.

Store retailers (excluding non-store retailers) are divided into chain stores and non-chain stores. Chain stores, which are defined as operating four or more locations in Canada (within the same industry group and under the same legal ownership), accounted for 48% of store operating revenue in 2010 and their market share has been slowly increasing each year.

Store retailers, on average, reported 64.2 days of stock-on-hand, similar to the previous year.

Non-store retailers' operating revenue was up 4.6% in 2010. In this subsector, there were increases at electronic shopping and mail-order houses (+5.2%), fuel dealers (+5.3%) and other direct selling establishments (+4.2%) while sales by vending machine operators declined 5.5%.

Note: This release combines data from the Annual Retail Store Survey and the Retail Non-store Survey. Operating profit is obtained by subtracting total operating expenses plus the cost of goods sold from total operating revenues. The ratio is expressed as a percentage of the total operating revenues.

Available without charge in CANSIM: tables 080-0012, 080-0013 and 080-0023.

Definitions, data sources and methods: survey numbers, including related surveys, 2447 and 2448.

Selected details for the annual retail trade in 2010 are now available in Annual Retail Trade, 2010 (63-270-X, free), from the Key resource module of our website under Publications.

For more information, or to order data, contact Client Services (toll-free 1-877-421-3067; 613-951-3549; retailinfo@statcan.gc.ca). To enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact Leslie Poon (613-951-0393), Distributive Trades Division.