FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FRIDAY MAY 13, 2016, AT 8:30 A.M. EDT

Rebecca DeNale CB16-78
Economic Indicators Division
(301) 763-2713
ADVANCE MONTHLY SALES FOR RETAIL AND FOOD SERVICES
APRIL 2016

Notice of Revision: Monthly retail sales estimates were revised on April 29, 2016 based on the results of the 2014 Annual Retail Trade Survey and the
final results from the 2012 Economic Census. The Annual Revision of Monthly Retail and Food Services showing revised estimates can be found on
our website at https://www.census.gov/retail/mrts/www/benchmark/2016/html/annrev16.html.
The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for April, adjusted for seasonal variation and
holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $453.4 billion, an increase of 1.3 percent (0.5%) from the previous month, and 3.0
percent (0.7%) above April 2015. Total sales for the February 2016 through April 2016 period were up 2.8 percent (0.5%) from the same period a
year ago. The February 2016 to March 2016 percent change was revised from down 0.4 percent (0.5%)* to down 0.3 percent (0.2%).
Retail trade sales were up 1.4 percent (0.5%) from March 2016, and up 2.7 percent (0.5%) from last year. Nonstore retailers were up 10.2 percent
(1.2%) from April 2015, while gasoline stations were down 9.4 percent (1.6%) from last year.
The advance estimates are based on a subsample of the Census Bureaus full retail and food services sample. A stratified random sampling method is
used to select approximately 4,700 retail and food services firms whose sales are then weighted and benchmarked to represent the complete universe
of over three million retail and food services firms. For an explanation of the measures of sampling variability included in this report, please see the
Reliability of Estimates section on the last page of this publication.
Percent Change in Retail and Food Services Sales
(Estimates adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes)

From Previous Month From Previous Year

4 4
3.5
3
2.5
2 3
1.5
1
0.5 Oct. Dec. Nov. Dec.3
0 2
-0.5
-1
-1.5
-2 1
-2.5
-3
-3.5
February March April 0
Total Ex Auto Auto Gen Mer Total Ex Auto Auto Gen Mer

The Advance Monthly Sales for Retail and Food Services for May is scheduled to be released June 14, 2016 at 8:30 a.m. EDT.
For customized retail time series estimates by industry, visit the Census Bureaus web site at www.census.gov/timeseries.
To learn more about this release and the other indicators the U.S. Census Bureau publishes, join us for the Investigating Economic
Indicators Webinar Series. For more information, visit http://www.census.gov/econ/webinar.
To receive the latest updates on the nations key economic indicators, download the Americas Economy app for Apple and Android smartphones and tablets.
The U.S. Census Bureau updated its Application Programming Interface (API) with monthly and quarterly economic indicators. The API allows developers to
combine Census Bureau statistics with other data sets to create tools for research on a variety of topics. For more information, visit www.census.gov/developers.
For additional survey information, visit www.census.gov/retail.
* The 90 percent confidence interval includes zero. The Census Bureau does not have sufficient statistical evidence to conclude that the actual change is
different than zero.
Table 1. Estimated Monthly Sales for Retail and Food Services, by Kind of Business
(Total sales estimates are shown in millions of dollars and are based on data from the Advance Monthly Retail Trade Survey, Monthly Retail
Trade Survey, and administrative records.)
Not Adjusted Adjusted2
1
NAICS 4 Month Total 2016 2015 2016 2015
Kind of Business
code % Chg. Apr.3 Mar. Feb. Apr. Mar. Apr.3 Mar. Feb. Apr. Mar.
2016 2015 (a) (p) (r) (a) (p) (r) (r) (r)
Retail & food services,
total . 1,725,448 3.5 450,888 460,078 413,554 438,217 444,110 453,438 447,812 449,294 440,249 440,463
Total (excl. motor vehicle & parts) 1,363,253 3.3 355,040 361,194 325,292 344,920 348,050 360,864 358,116 356,656 350,501 350,683
Retail ... 1,511,300 3.0 394,605 404,075 361,878 386,098 391,146 399,320 393,859 395,126 388,799 389,634
GAFO4............ (*) (*) (*) 103,802 94,231 97,444 101,399 (*) 105,202 105,065 104,564 104,897
441 Motor vehicle & parts dealers . 362,195 4.5 95,848 98,884 88,262 93,297 96,060 92,574 89,696 92,638 89,748 89,780
4411, 4412 Auto & other motor veh. dealers . 333,850 4.7 88,641 91,176 81,364 85,892 88,604 85,396 82,512 85,377 82,509 82,576
44111 New car dealers . (*) (*) (*) 75,159 66,981 70,464 73,238 (NA) (NA) (NA) (NA) (NA)
4413 Auto parts, acc. & tire stores (*) (*) (*) 7,708 6,898 7,405 7,456 (NA) (NA) (NA) (NA) (NA)
442 Furniture & home furn. stores 33,899 5.6 8,560 9,097 8,203 8,193 8,556 9,030 8,963 8,945 8,716 8,642
4421 Furniture stores .. (*) (*) (*) 5,006 4,638 4,357 4,741 (NA) (NA) (NA) (NA) (NA)
4422 Home furnishings stores .. (*) (*) (*) 4,091 3,565 3,836 3,815 (NA) (NA) (NA) (NA) (NA)
443 Electronics & appliance stores 30,956 -1.9 7,233 8,057 7,956 7,358 8,098 8,559 8,520 8,472 8,738 8,631
44311, 13 Appl., T.V. & camera (*) (*) (*) 6,038 5,929 5,465 5,960 (*) 6,349 6,281 6,369 6,347
44312 Computer & software stores. (*) (*) (*) (S) (S) (S) (S) (*) (S) (S) (S) (S)
444 Building material & garden eq. &
supplies dealers. 108,695 9.7 33,255 30,050 23,290 31,512 26,526 29,468 29,774 29,627 27,246 27,266
4441 Building mat. & sup. dealers (*) (*) (*) 25,613 20,706 25,822 23,015 (*) 25,536 25,658 23,582 23,702
445 Food & beverage stores. 227,346 2.6 56,634 58,687 54,663 55,803 56,827 58,402 57,854 58,145 57,290 57,352
4451 Grocery stores .. 204,967 2.5 50,827 52,780 49,193 50,091 51,167 52,237 51,694 51,946 51,218 51,270
4453 Beer, wine & liquor stores (*) (*) (*) 3,981 3,718 3,864 3,881 (*) 4,244 4,254 4,182 4,237
446 Health & personal care stores . 108,541 7.1 27,337 28,715 26,559 25,511 26,195 27,725 27,478 27,129 25,639 25,531
44611 Pharmacies & drug stores (*) (*) (*) 24,093 22,346 21,597 21,873 (*) 23,056 22,779 21,662 21,360
447 Gasoline stations 120,250 -11.0 32,735 31,325 27,096 36,211 35,984 32,637 31,932 30,967 36,031 36,644

448 Clothing & clothing accessories

stores ... 76,125 1.9 20,561 21,288 18,712 20,346 20,711 21,402 21,192 21,356 21,131 21,321

44811 Men's clothing stores (*) (*) (*) 702 617 761 694 (*) 714 714 732 740
44812 Women's clothing stores .. (*) (*) (*) 3,728 2,978 3,505 3,590 (*) 3,510 3,549 3,393 3,482
44814 Family clothing stores (*) (*) (*) 8,320 6,726 8,066 8,176 (NA) (NA) (NA) (NA) (NA)
4482 Shoe stores (*) (*) (*) 3,065 2,764 2,698 2,878 (*) 2,862 2,897 2,756 2,802
451 Sporting goods, hobby, book &
music stores 27,532 7.4 6,982 7,359 6,288 6,559 6,850 7,801 7,787 7,773 7,487 7,397
452 General merchandise stores. 207,790 1.0 52,648 55,431 50,661 52,424 54,686 55,950 55,969 55,781 55,651 56,144
4521 Department stores (ex. L.D.).. 46,112 -3.0 11,997 12,686 11,208 12,349 13,178 13,319 13,275 13,314 13,549 14,139
4521 Department stores (incl. L.D.)5 (*) (*) (*) 13,038 11,406 12,523 13,352 (*) (NA) (NA) (NA) (NA)
4529 Other general merch. stores. .. (*) (*) (*) 42,745 39,453 40,075 41,508 (*) 42,694 42,467 42,102 42,005
45291 Warehouse clubs &
supercenters. (*) (*) (*) 36,785 34,060 34,598 35,853 (*) 36,822 36,624 36,496 36,252
45299 All oth. gen. merch. stores (*) (*) (*) 5,960 5,393 5,477 5,655 (*) 5,872 5,843 5,606 5,753
453 Miscellaneous store retailers .. 38,190 4.6 10,140 10,208 9,094 9,573 9,479 10,534 10,377 10,213 10,058 9,906
454 Nonstore retailers .. 169,781 8.1 42,672 44,974 41,094 39,311 41,174 45,238 44,317 44,080 41,064 41,020
4541 Elect. shopping & m/o houses . (*) (*) (*) 38,894 34,821 33,449 34,046 (*) 38,972 38,561 35,062 34,776
722 Food services & drinking places 214,148 7.4 56,283 56,003 51,676 52,119 52,964 54,118 53,953 54,168 51,450 50,829

(*) Advance estimates are not available for this kind of business. (NA) Not available (a) Advance estimate (p) Preliminary estimate (r) Revised estimate

(S) Estimate does not meet publication standards because of high sampling variability (coefficient of variation is greater than 30%), poor response quality
(total quantity response rate is less than 50%), or other concerns about the estimate's quality.
(1) For a full description of the NAICS codes used in this table, see http://www.census.gov/eos/www/naics
(2) Estimates are concurrently adjusted for seasonal variation and for holiday and trading day differences, but not for price changes. Concurrent seasonal adjustment
uses all available unadjusted estimates as input to the X-13ARIMA-SEATS program. The factors derived from the program are used in calculating all seasonally
adjusted estimates shown in this table. Year-to-date seasonally adjusted sales estimates are not tabulated. Adjustment factors and explanatory material can be found
on the Internet at http://www.census.gov/retail
(3) Advance estimates are based on early reports obtained from a small sample of firms selected from the larger Monthly Retail Trade Survey (MRTS) sample.
All other estimates are from the MRTS sample.
(4) GAFO represents firms which specialize in department store types of merchandise and is comprised of furniture & home furnishings (442), electronics & appliances (443),
clothing & accessories (448), sporting goods, hobby, book, and music (451), general merchandise (452), office supply, stationery, and gift stores (4532).
(5) Estimates include data for leased departments operated within department stores. Data for this line are not included in broader kind-of-business totals.
Note: Table 3 provides estimated measures of sampling variability. Additional information on confidentiality protection, sampling error, nonsampling error,
sample design, and definitions may be found at http://www.census.gov/retail
 Table 2. Estimated Change in Monthly Sales for Retail and Food Services, by Kind of Business
(Estimates are shown as percents and are based on data from the Advance Monthly Retail Trade Survey,
Monthly Retail Trade Survey, and administrative records.)
1
Percent Change
Feb. 2016
Apr. 2016 Advance Mar. 2016 Preliminary through
NAICS Kind of Business from -- from -- Apr. 2016 from --
code Nov. 2015 Feb. 2015
Mar. 2016 Apr. 2015 Feb. 2016 Mar. 2015 through through
(p) (r) (r) (r) Jan. 2016 Apr. 2015
Retail & food services,
total .. 1.3 3.0 -0.3 1.7 0.3 2.8
Total (excl. motor vehicle & parts) .. 0.8 3.0 0.4 2.1 0.6 2.6
Retail .... 1.4 2.7 -0.3 1.1 0.1 2.3
441 Motor vehicle & parts dealers 3.2 3.1 -3.2 -0.1 -1.1 3.5
4411, 4412 Auto & other motor veh. dealers 3.5 3.5 -3.4 -0.1 -1.1 3.8
442 Furniture & home furn. stores 0.7 3.6 0.2 3.7 0.6 4.7
443 Electronics & appliance stores . 0.5 -2.0 0.6 -1.3 0.1 -1.7
444 Building material & garden eq. &
supplies dealers -1.0 8.2 0.5 9.2 1.6 9.6
445 Food & beverage stores 0.9 1.9 -0.5 0.9 0.3 1.5
4451 Grocery stores . 1.1 2.0 -0.5 0.8 0.2 1.4
446 Health & personal care stores 0.9 8.1 1.3 7.6 3.0 7.4
447 Gasoline stations .. 2.2 -9.4 3.1 -12.9 -4.6 -12.5
448 Clothing & clothing accessories
stores . 1.0 1.3 -0.8 -0.6 0.3 0.7
451 Sporting goods, hobby, book &
music stores.. 0.2 4.2 0.2 5.3 1.1 5.6
452 General merchandise stores 0.0 0.5 0.3 -0.3 -0.5 0.2
4521 Department stores (ex. L.D.). 0.3 -1.7 -0.3 -6.1 -1.5 -3.6
453 Miscellaneous store retailers . 1.5 4.7 1.6 4.8 2.1 4.0
454 Nonstore retailers . 2.1 10.2 0.5 8.0 3.2 8.8
722 Food services & drinking places .. 0.3 5.2 -0.4 6.1 1.5 6.4

(p) Preliminary estimate (r) Revised estimate

(1) Estimates shown in this table are derived from adjusted estimates provided in Table 1 of this report.
Note: Table 3 provides estimated measures of sampling variability. Additional information on confidentiality protection, sampling error, nonsampling error,
sample design, and definitions may be found at http://www.census.gov/retail.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Survey Description
The U.S. Census Bureau conducts the Advance Monthly Retail or adjustment for nonrespondents in MARTS. The total sales
Trade and Food Services Survey (MARTS) to provide an early estimate is derived by multiplying this ratio by the preliminary sales
estimate of monthly sales by kind of business for retail and food estimate for the previous month (derived from the larger MRTS
service firms located in the United States. Each month, sample). Detailed industry estimates are summed to derive total
questionnaires are mailed to a probability sample of approximately estimates at broad industry levels. The monthly estimates are
4,700 employer firms selected from the larger Monthly Retail Trade adjusted using annual survey estimates and for seasonal variation
Survey (MRTS). Advance sales estimates are computed using a and holiday and trading-day differences. Additional information on
link relative estimator. The change in sales from the previous MARTS and MRTS can be found on the Census Bureau website
month is estimated using only units that have reported data at: http://www.census.gov/retail.
for both the current and previous month. There is no imputation
U.S. Department of Commerce FIRST-CLASS MAIL
POSTAGE & FEES PAID
U.S. Census Bureau
Washington, D.C. 20233
Bureau of the Census
PERMIT NO. G-58

Official Business

Penalty for Private Use, $300

Reliability of Estimates
Because the estimates presented in this report are based on a sample confidence level that the change is different from zero and therefore
survey, they contain sampling error and nonsampling error. the change is not statistically significant. Estimated changes shown in
the text are statistically significant unless otherwise noted. For a
Sampling error is the difference between the estimate and the result monthly total, the median estimated coefficient of variation is given.
that would be obtained from a complete enumeration of the sampling The resulting confidence interval is the estimated value 1.753 x CV x
frame conducted under the same survey conditions. This error occurs (the estimated monthly total). The Census Bureau recommends that
because only a subset of the entire sampling frame is measured in a individuals using estimates in this report incorporate this information
sample survey. Standard errors and coefficients of variation (CV), as into their analyses, as sampling error could affect the conclusions
given in Table 3 of this report, are estimated measures of sampling drawn from the estimates.
variation.
Nonsampling error encompasses all other factors that contribute to the
The margin of sampling error, as used on page 1, gives a range about total error of a sample survey estimate. This type of error can occur
the estimate which is a 90 percent confidence interval. If, for example, because of nonresponse, insufficient coverage of the universe of retail
the percent change estimate is +1.2 percent and its estimated businesses, mistakes in the recording and coding of data, and other
standard error is 0.9 percent, then the margin of sampling error is errors of collection, response, coverage, or processing. Although
1.753 x 0.9 percent or 1.6 percent, and the 90 percent confidence nonsampling error is not measured directly, the Census Bureau
interval is 0.4 percent to +2.8 percent. If the interval contains 0, then employs quality control procedures throughout the process to
one does not have sufficient evidence to conclude at the 90 percent minimize this type of error.

Table 3. Estimated Measures of Sampling Variability and Revision to Advance Estimates Apr. 2016
(Estimates are shown as percents and are based on data from the Advance Monthly Retail Trade Survey and Monthly Retail Trade Survey)
Median standard error(1) for Revision for month-
Median Percent change to-month change(2)
(1)
NAICS Code Kind of Business CV for Previous Mo. Previous Qtr. Current Mo. Median
Current Mo. to to to same Average absolute
(%) Current Mo. Current Qtr. Mo. Last Yr. revision revision
Retail & food services,
total ... 0.5 0.3 0.2 0.4 0.0 0.2
Total (excl. motor vehicle & parts) .. 0.6 0.2 0.2 0.4 0.0 0.2
Retail .... 0.5 0.3 0.1 0.3 0.0 0.2
441 Motor vehicle & parts dealers .. 1.4 1.0 0.4 1.4 0.1 0.4
4411, 4412 Auto & other motor veh. dealers . 1.4 1.1 0.5 1.4 0.1 0.5
442 Furniture & home furn. stores. 2.4 1.3 0.8 1.3 0.4 0.3
443 Electronics & appliance stores .. 2.8 0.5 0.6 1.5 0.0 0.3
444 Building material & garden eq. &.
supplies dealers 2.0 1.2 0.8 1.3 -0.1 0.7
445 Food & beverage stores. 1.4 0.3 0.2 0.5 0.0 0.2
4451 Grocery stores .. 1.4 0.2 0.2 0.5 0.0 0.2
446 Health & personal care stores 2.2 0.5 0.4 1.2 0.1 0.3
447 Gasoline stations .. 1.9 0.5 0.4 0.9 0.0 0.5
448 Clothing & clothing accessories
stores .. 2.1 0.5 0.5 1.0 0.0 0.2
451 Sporting goods, hobby, book &
music stores.. 2.3 0.9 0.9 1.2 0.0 0.3
452 General merchandise stores. 0.2 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.0 0.3
4521 Department stores (ex. L.D.) 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.2
453 Miscellaneous store retailers .. 2.9 2.0 1.2 2.5 0.4 1.2
454 Nonstore retailers .. 1.4 0.4 0.4 0.7 0.0 0.4
722 Food services & drinking places .. 2.2 1.0 0.9 2.1 0.1 0.4

(1) Estimated measures of sampling variability are based on estimates not adjusted for seasonal variation or holiday or trading day variation. Medians are based on estimates for the most
recent 12 months.

(2) These columns provide measures of the difference between the advance-to-preliminary and preliminary-to-final estimates of month-to-month change for the same pair of months as
measured by the Advance sample and MRTS sample. The average and median revisions are based on estimates for the most recent 12 months.

Note: Additional information on confidentiality protection, sampling error, nonsampling error, sample design, and definitions may be found at http://www.census.gov/retail