Retail Non-Store Survey

Detailed information for 2006

This survey provides information that is comparable to data available for other industries, such as: production and employment by type of non-store retailer by province, and proportion of Gross Domestic Product. Businesses, associations, analysts, investors and governments will use this information to monitor the impact of the non-store retail industry in Canada.

Data release - May 22, 2008 (released together with the chain stores data and the non-chain stores data to produce the Annual Retail Trade Statistics).

• Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s)
• Description
• Data sources and methodology
• Data accuracy

Description

Statistics Canada is aiming to provide more complete information on the segment of the retail industry that uses non-store methods of merchandising. The Annual Retail Non-Store Survey, conducted for the first time for the 1999 reference year, is part of the Unified Enterprise Survey Program (UES), and driven by the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). The survey is industry-based, meaning that it covers only businesses that primarily sell through non-store methods, and collects data for all the sales of those businesses. This survey provides information that is comparable to data available for other industries, such as: production and employment by type of non-store retailer by province, and proportion of Gross Domestic Product. Businesses, associations, analysts, investors and governments will use this information to monitor the impact of the non-store retail industry in Canada.

Non-store retailers, like store retailers, are organized to serve the general public, but their retailing methods differ. The establishments of this sub sector reach customers and market merchandise with methods such as, the broadcasting of infomercials, the broadcasting and publishing of direct-response advertising, the publishing of traditional and electronic catalogues, door-to-door solicitation, in-home demonstration, temporary displaying of merchandise (stalls) and distribution by vending machines.

The non-store retailers sub sector also includes establishments engaged in the home delivery of products. This includes fuel dealers and newspaper delivery businesses.

The methods of transaction and delivery of merchandise vary by type of non-store retailers. For example, non-store retailers that reach their customers using information technologies can receive payment at the time of purchase or at the time of delivery, and the delivery of the merchandise may be done by the retailer or by a third party, such as the post office or a courier. In contrast, non-store retailers that reach their customers by door-to-door solicitation, in-home demonstration, temporary displaying of merchandise (stalls) and vending machines typically receive payment and deliver the merchandise to the customer at the time of the purchase.

The non-store retail industry includes self-employed individuals who work as agents on commission for a particular company. (Retail commission agents are also known as sales contractors, distributors, or sales representatives, and usually represent only one company.)

Agents on commission primarily sell merchandise owned by others, that is, they do not take legal title to the goods they handle. Therefore, they cannot report inventories or goods purchased for resale and don't necessarily have employees. Most of their revenue is derived from commissions, though they may also have other sources of revenue.

The Annual Retail Survey (record number 2447) covers store-based retailers.

Statistical activity

The survey is administered as part of the Unified Enterprise Survey program (UES). The UES program has been designed to integrate, gradually over time, the approximately 200 separate business surveys into a single master survey program. The UES aims at collecting more industry and product detail at the provincial level than was previously possible while avoiding overlap between different survey questionnaires. The redesigned business survey questionnaires have a consistent look, structure and content. The unified approach makes reporting easier for firms operating in different industries because they can provide similar information for each branch operation. This way they avoid having to respond to questionnaires that differ for each industry in terms of format, wording and even concepts.

Reference period: The calendar year or the 12-month fiscal period for which the final day occurs on or between April 1st of the reference year and March 31st of the following year.

Collection period: April through September of the year after the reference period.

Subjects

• Retail and wholesale
• Retail sales by type of product
• Retail sales by type of store

Data sources and methodology

Target population

The target population consists of all non-store retail establishments operating in Canada for at least one day between January 1st and December 31st.

The survey population is the collection of all non-store retail establishments from which the survey can realistically obtain information. The survey population will differ from the target population due to difficulties in identifying all the units that belong to the target population because of a possible lack of detailed information for some units, particularly small businesses with low sales levels.

The survey population is comprised of all statistical establishments coded to North America Industry Classification System (NAICS) 454 (Non-Store Retail Trade Sector) on Statistics Canada's Business Register. A list of these industries is attached.

• Additional documentation

Instrument design

The questionnaire content was developed and subsequently field-tested with respondents via focus groups. This was to ensure that the questions, concepts and terminology were appropriate from a conceptual and respondent point of view. This included an assessment of respondents' willingness to respond; to determine whether respondents understood the questions and what to report; to investigate the compatibility of questions and response categories with respondents' record-keeping practices; to identify problems or difficulties that respondents may have in retrieving information and in completing questionnaires; to verify the translations were correct; to obtain respondents' suggestions about how to improve the questionnaires; and to ensure the questionnaires were respondent-friendly.

The new UES Non-Store Retail questionnaire is more detailed than the previous questionnaires for direct selling and vending machine operators. These surveys requested the distribution of non-store sales by commodity and little or no financial data. However, the new questionnaire asks for detailed categories of revenue and expenses as well as inventories. This information will contribute to a more accurate profile of the industry and more useful benchmarks for financial performance.

This survey also includes a Commodity Annex asking respondents to report their sales by commodity. The annex lists over 100 commodity groups, while previous surveys for direct sales and vending machines listed only 20 categories. The more detailed data from this survey will contribute to more useful statistics for analyzing market shares for specific commodities. Commodity detail was expanded at the request of industry associations so that non-store commodity estimates would be comparable to Statistics Canada's Quarterly Retail Commodity Survey of Store Retailers (record number 2008).

Sampling

This survey is a census with a cross-sectional design.

Data are collected for all units of the target population, therefore, no sampling is done.

Data sources

Data collection for this reference period: 2007-03-20 to 2007-09-28

Responding to this survey is mandatory.

Data are collected directly from survey respondents and extracted from administrative files.

In order to reduce the respondent response burden and still produce reliable figures, exclusion thresholds based on industrial, provincial, and size dimensions were implemented. Data for the non-store retailing establishments above the prescribed threshold were collected through questionnaires and administrative (tax) data were used to estimate for small businesses below the threshold.

All new potential respondents are pre-contacted by phone to confirm their classification as well as the contact information.

Data collection, data capture, preliminary editing and follow-up of non-respondents are all done by the Operations and Integration Division of Statistics Canada in Ottawa, Ontario. Data capture and preliminary editing are performed simultaneously to ensure the validity of the data. The survey is conducted using the mail-out / mail-back questionnaire approach, as well as using Computer Assisted Telephone Interviews (CATI) for capture, edit and follow-up.

View the Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s).

Error detection

Once available, reported data are examined for completeness and consistency using automated editing coupled with analytical review. Extreme values are listed for manual inspection in an order of priority decided by the size of the deviation from average behaviour. These outliers are excluded from use in the calculation of imputation variables by the imputation system.

Imputation

Estimates are imputed for enterprises that are unable to respond on time, provide incomplete questionnaires, provide some unreliable reported values, or ceased their activities during the year. With the complementary use of taxation data, the quality of the data coming out of the imputation process is judged to be good for the aggregate variables, such as total revenue and total expenses.

Estimation

This methodology type does not apply to this statistical program.

Quality evaluation

All surveys are subject to errors. While considerable effort is made to ensure a high standard throughout all survey operations, the resulting estimates are inevitably subject to a certain degree of error. Errors can arise from mistakes made by responding enterprises or interviewers during the collection of data, from errors made in keying of data, from imputation of a consistent but not necessarily correct value, or from other sources.

Disclosure control

Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any data which would divulge information obtained under the Statistics Act that relates to any identifiable person, business or organization without the prior knowledge or the consent in writing of that person, business or organization. Various confidentiality rules are applied to all data that are released or published to prevent the publication or disclosure of any information deemed confidential. If necessary, data are suppressed to prevent direct or residual disclosure of identifiable data.

Data for a specific industry or variable may be suppressed (along with that of a second industry or variable) if the number of enterprises in the population is too low.

Another way of preserving data confidentiality without having to suppress data is to combine (consolidate) the information from selected regions, selected industry classes, or other selected cells. The data in question can be aggregated and published in a less detailed, but still confidential, form.

Data accuracy

While considerable effort is made to ensure high standards throughout all stages of collection and processing, the resulting estimates are inevitably subject to a certain degree of non-sampling error. Examples of non-sampling error are coverage error, data response error, non-response error and processing error.

Measures such as response rate (total number of completed questionnaires as a percentage of the total active, in-scope survey sample) and response fraction (the proportion of the estimate based upon reported data) can be used as indicators of the possible extent of non-sampling errors. For the year 2006 survey, at the Canada level, the response fractions (RF) for total operating revenue (TOR) was 86.0 %.

• Additional documentation