2012 Annual Retail Trade Survey

Unified Enterprise Survey

Reporting Guide

This guide is designed to assist you as you complete the 2012 Annual Retail Trade Survey. If you need more information, please call the Statistics Canada Help Line at the number below.

Help Line: 1-800-858-7921

Table of contents

General information
Part A
A - Introduction
Reporting instructions
Main business activity
Reporting period information
Revenue, cost of goods sold and expenses
B - Revenue
C - Cost of goods sold
D - Expenses
E - Distribution of total operating revenue
F - Events that may have affected your business unit
H - Comments
J - Contact information
Part B - Location details
APPENDIX 1 - GASOLINE SERVICE STATION GUIDE
I - Independent retail dealer
II - Retail commissionned agent
III - Lessee
IV - Oil refinery or other wholesale supplier
APPENDIX 2 - BEER, WINE AND LIQUOR CHAINS

General information

Survey purpose

Statistics Canada uses your survey responses to compile operating and financial statistics for the retail sector by province/territory and Canada as a whole. By accurately reporting your business units activity, you contribute to measuring provincial/territorial and Canadian economic output - the gross domestic product (GDP), as well as provide an accurate portrait of the store retailing sector in Canada.

Retailers also make significant use of the data from these surveys to:

• track their performance against industry averages;
• evaluate expansion plans;
• prepare business plans for investors;
• determine payments with respect to performance based contracts;
• plan marketing strategies.

Your answers are confidential.

Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any information it collects which could identify any person, business, or organization, unless consent has been given by the respondent or as permitted by the Statistics Act.

Statistics Canada will use information from this survey for statistical purposes.

Data-sharing agreements

To reduce respondent burden, Statistics Canada has entered into data-sharing agreements with provincial and territorial statistical agencies and other government organizations, which have agreed to keep the data confidential and use them only for statistical purposes. Statistics Canada will only share data from this survey with those organizations that have demonstrated a requirement to use the data.

Section 11 of the Statistics Act provides for the sharing of information with provincial and territorial statistical agencies that meet certain conditions. These agencies must have the legislative authority to collect the same information, on a mandatory basis, and the legislation must provide substantially the same provisions for confidentiality and penalties for disclosure of confidential information as the Statistics Act. Because these agencies have the legal authority to compel businesses to provide the same information, consent is not requested and businesses may not object to the sharing of the data.

For this survey, there are Section 11 agreements with the provincial and territorial statistical agencies of Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, and the Yukon.

The shared data will be limited to business establishments located within the jurisdiction of the respective province or territory.

Section 12 of the Statistics Act provides for the sharing of information with federal, provincial or territorial government organizations. Under Section 12, you may refuse to share your information with any of these organizations by writing a letter of objection to the Chief Statistician and returning it with the completed questionnaire. Please specify the organizations with which you do not want to share your data.

For this survey, there are Section 12 agreements with the statistical agencies of Prince Edward Island, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.

For agreements with provincial and territorial government organizations, the shared data will be limited to business establishments located within the jurisdiction of the respective province or territory.

Record linkage

To enhance the data from this survey, Statistics Canada may combine it with information from other surveys or from administrative sources.

Questionnaire

This guide is designed to provide additional information and to assist you in completing the questionnaire.

The Annual Retail Trade Survey is comprised of 2 parts. Part A of the questionnaire requests information on revenue earned and expenses incurred by your business unit, information typically found on the income statement of the business unit. Part A is divided into six sections identified with capital letters A to F. Each section is further subdivided by headings and letters.

Part B of the questionnaire requests detailed information on individual locations. Part B serves 2 important purposes:

• First, if you operate in more than one province or territory, the data you provide are used to allocate your economic activity to the provinces/territories in which it actually takes place. This is important for measuring the GDP for each province/territory.
• Second, by having data on individual stores, aggregate performance measures can be developed that allow you to make comparisons of the performance of your company against industry standards for similar types of operations.

Electronic reporting

The Retail Trade questionnaire is available in both a paper and an electronic format. The electronic version is particularly useful for companies with a large number of locations and allows the location detail to be loaded from a variety of software formats. Should you wish to change from the paper questionnaire to the electronic questionnaire, or the reverse, please call the Help Line number on the front page. Guideline items in this guide correspond to sections and question numbers on the survey questionnaire.

D - Expenses

1. Salaries and wages of employees

Please report all salaries and wages (including taxable allowances and employment commissions as defined on the T4 – Statement of Remuneration Paid) before deductions.

Include:

• vacation pay;
• bonuses (including profit sharing);
• commissions;
• taxable allowances (e.g., room and board, vehicle allowances, gifts such as airline tickets for holidays);
• retroactive wage payments;
• direct employee labour costs (e.g., related to any manufacturing activity or installation service).

Exclude all payments and expenses associated with outside contract workers and casual labour for whom a T4-Statement of Remuneration Paid was not issued such as:

• the cost of a receptionist or a filing clerk under direct contract to you;
• payments to employment agencies or personnel suppliers, (e.g., pay for temporary workers paid through an agency and charges for personnel search services under direct contract to you).

Please report these amounts in this section, at question 8.

2. Employer portion of employee benefits

Include :

• employee life and extended health care insurance plans (e.g., medical, dental, drug and vision care plans);
• Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and Quebec Pension Plan (QPP) contributions;
• employer pension contributions;
• workers’ compensation (provincial or territorial plan applicable to this business unit);
• employment insurance premiums (EI);
• retiring allowances or lump sum payments to employees at time of termination or retirement;
• all other employee benefits and supplementary unemployment benefit (SUB) plans;
• contributions to provincial and territorial health and education payroll taxes.

3. Total labour remuneration

The sum of questions 1 and 2 or the total if you cannot provide the above breakdown.

4. Rental and leasing expenses

Include:

• rent of office space or other real estate;
• motor vehicles (without driver);
• computers and peripherals (without operator);
• other machinery and equipment (without operator);
• furniture and fixtures.

Exclude:

• rental and leasing of vehicles, machinery and equipment with driver or operator; please report these items at question 8 below.

5. Advertising and promotion

Include:

• planning, creating and placement services of advertising;
• purchase of sale of advertising space or time;
• other advertising services;
• trade fair and exhibition organization services.

6. Amortization and depreciation expenses

Include the amortization and depreciation expenses on this business unit’s:

• capital assets;
• intangible assets;
• capital lease obligations.

Exclude:

• amortization and depreciation expenses on vehicles owned by this business unit that are leased to others.

7. Management fees and other service fees charged by head office and other business support units

Include:

• any management or service fees paid to head office.

8. All other operating expenses

Please report all other operating expenses not specified and reported above.

Include:

• all payments and expenses associated with outside contract workers;
• rental and leasing of vehicles, machinery and equipment with driver or operator;
• goods transportation, warehousing and storage expenses;
• bad debt;
• donations;
• other costs (these are non-labour costs related to any manufacturing activity or installation service).

Exclude:

• interest expenses; please report these amounts at question 10 below.

9. Total operating expenses

The sum of questions 3 to 8 in this section.

10. Other expenses

Include:

• interest expenses on capital lease obligations;
• interest on loans;
• the interest portion of mortgage payments.

11. Total expenses

The sum of questions 9 and 10 in this section.

E - Distribution of total operating revenue

Statistics Canada recognizes that this may be a difficult section to answer. If precise numbers are not available, please provide your best estimates.

1. By type of customer

In this section you are asked to indicate the percentage of total operating revenue (reported in Section B, at question 9) from individuals and households and from all other customers.

Data on your revenue by type of customer are used to determine the percentage of revenue in the retail trade sector that originates from end use consumption by individuals and households and the percentage that is derived from purchases for other uses.

2. By method of sale

In this section you are asked to indicate the percentage of total operating revenue earned from in-store sales, e-commerce, catalogue, mail-order and telephone and all other methods.

Data on your revenue by method of sale are used to measure the evolving means by which traditional store retailers reach their clientele.

a) In-store sales

Please report the percentage of total operating revenue of goods or services which are purchased in a fixed point-of-sale location accessible to the public. Sales at pumps for gasoline stations are considered in-store sales.

b) E-commerce

Please report the percentage of total operating revenue of goods or services, whether between businesses, households, individuals, governments, conducted over internet applications. The goods and services are ordered over those networks, but the payment and ultimate delivery of the good or service may be conducted on or off-line.

c) Catalogue, mail order or telephone

Please report the percentage of total operating revenue generated from customers ordering their goods from catalogues and mail order flyers. Include sales purchased via telephone and fax.

d) All other methods

Please report the percentage of total operating revenue of goods or services from all other methods. This includes trade shows, special events, in-home sales and card lock.