quarterly e-commerce retail series

E-commerce is captured on its own schedule inside Census retail programs. The Monthly Retail Trade Survey release covering electronics and appliance stores documents 'quarterly e-commerce series to Q1 2018 in current detail' with granularity stated as 'quarterly for e-commerce' — a slower cadence than the monthly sales and inventories tables sitting next to it.

Two products carry the channel:

• U.S. Census Monthly Retail Trade Survey (MRTS/MARTS) — quarterly e-commerce detail, tagged e-commerce, ending at Q1 2018 in current detail.
• Annual Retail Trade Survey / AIES — e-commerce estimates spanning 1998-2022.

For NAICS 443 electronics and appliance stores the distinction is sharpest, since the industry includes retailers whose entire assortment competes with pure-play online sellers.

If your market model treats total retail as the denominator without stripping the digital channel, you will misread physical retail health. The e-commerce split is what isolates store-based demand from non-store fulfillment — and its quarterly grain means monthly models must interpolate carefully.

The detail cutoff matters just as much. Quarterly e-commerce detail stops at Q1 2018 in this release, so any recent-years analysis has to fall back on annual estimates from ARTS (1998-2022) or accept lower resolution — a constraint worth knowing before you promise monthly granularity to stakeholders.

1. Ask for the frequency and the end date. MRTS documents 'quarterly for e-commerce' with current detail to Q1 2018; a vendor claiming monthly e-commerce detail should be asked to show it.

1. Pair the quarterly series with the annual one. ARTS carries e-commerce 1998-2022, giving the long run that the quarterly detail lacks after 2018.

1. Keep kind-of-business codes intact. NAICS 443 splits electronics and appliance retail at six digits, and the e-commerce split only reconciles when those codes survive your pipeline.

Where to see it in context: computer-electronics-retail data and consumer-staples-merchandise-retail data.

Census retail programs and concepts around the e-commerce split: - annual-retail-trade-survey — The Annual Retail Trade Survey is the Census Bureau's yearly benchmark of US retail sales, inventories, purchases, gross margin, per capita sales and e-commerce, carrying detailed operating expenses only in years ending in 2 and 7. - monthly-retail-trade-survey — The Census Bureau's monthly survey program producing US retail sales and inventories by kind of business, published in workbooks covering January 1992 to present plus advance reports and adjustment factors. - naics-443-electronics-appliance-stores — The NAICS industry covering electronics and appliance retailers, split at the six-digit level into household appliance stores (443141) and electronics stores (443142). - non-store-retail-series — Non-store retail series track sellers without physical storefronts, published inside national retail statistics as dedicated indices and internet sales ratios.