Thursday, the U.S. Census Bureau will release its advance June estimates of retail sales data. Retail sales capture a major portion of overall consumer spending, and thus a major part of GDP, and the June data will complete the snapshot for the second quarter of 2011. While the monthly retail sales figures justifiably receive a great deal of attention, the Census Bureau has other, less prominent statistical data that also enrich our knowledge of the retail sector and the economy as a whole.
The Census Bureau’s Business Register draws on the Bureau’s economic censuses and current business surveys, quarterly and annual federal income and payroll tax records, and other Departmental and federal statistics and administrative records to provide a continuously updated set of information on more than 7.4 million U.S. business establishments. Together, these data provide a binocular view into the economic landscape. To illustrate its value, let’s return to a retail topic we visited in a prior blog and see what additional insights we can gather.
We looked at the ongoing shift in spending to big-box retailing [1], particularly at warehouse clubs and superstores. These stores are one part of a broader grouping of retailers called “general merchandise stores” because they sell a variety of goods. Department stores are also general merchandise stores. Warehouse clubs and superstores have boomed in recent years, growing to 4,482 in 2009 and employing 1.4 million workers. Going back 10 years earlier, there were only about 1,800 of these stores. The state with the most warehouse clubs and superstores? Texas (I guess when they say everything is bigger in Texas, they weren’t kidding).
Nationally, there are about 1.46 of these big box stores per 100,000 residents, and the map below illustrates how this store density varies across the states. It reminds us of what many East and West Coast city dwellers already know: the further away you get from the coasts, the easier it is to find a warehouse club or superstore. Not surprisingly, people from Arkansas have a particularly easy time of it, as they have about 2.56 stores per 100,000 residents. But that’s nothing compared to the 3.58 stores per 100,000 residents in Oregon. Leading the way, however, are Ohio and Texas, with 1.81 and 1.72 stores per 100,000 residents, respectively. Ohio’s is known as “the heart of it all,” and apparently “it all” also refers to plentiful big-box shopping. The state with the fewest superstores per 100,000 residents? Vermont.
Warehouse Club and Superstore Establishments per 100,000 residents in 2009
Source: County Business Patterns
While the number of warehouse clubs and superstores nationally more than doubled between 1999 and 2009, the number of department stores during the decade fell from 10,538 to 8,663, an 18-percent drop. The state with the most department stores? California. One explanation for why department stores “disappear” is because they add other features, such as groceries, which change their classification to superstores. “Adapt or perish” might be the lesson here. Because of this shift, we now see more people working in warehouse clubs and superstores than department stores. Just a few years ago, it was the other way around. But given that the average warehouse club and superstore employs 315 workers, compared to 138 in the average department store, this employment shift is not surprising.
As we await Thursday’s retail sales release, I invite you to dig into some of the lesser-known Census Bureau data products for more detailed information on a variety of subjects.
~Mark Doms, Chief Economist, U.S. Department of Commerce
July 13, 2011
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