(Restricted) Monthly Wholesale Trade Survey (MWTS)

Résumé 0

The Monthly Wholesale Trade Survey (MWTS) tracks month-to-month trends for sales and inventories of U.S. distributors, jobbers, drop shippers, and import/export merchants, excluding manufacturers' sales branches or offices (MSBOs). Title 13 of the United States Code authorizes the Census Bureau to conduct this survey and provides for voluntary responses. Companies provide dollar values of sales and end-of-month inventories. The survey covers companies with employment that are primarily engaged in merchant wholesale trade in the U.S, as defined by the 2007 NAICS, excluding MSBOs. Also excluded are non-merchant wholesalers such as agents, brokers, and electronic markets. The MWTS uses a stratified, one-stage design with primary strata defined by industry (e.g., motor vehicle and motor vehicle parts, furniture and home furnishings, grocery, etc.). There are 42 primary strata. The primary strata are substratified into 4, 7, 10, or 13 annual sales size strata. The largest sales size stratum within each industry stratum consists of companies that are all selected with certainty (sampling weight equal to one). The other strata are populated by EINs. Sample sizes are computed to meet multiple coefficient of variation constraints on estimated annual sales and end-of-year inventory totals. Constraints are specified at detailed industry levels and at broad industry levels up to the total wholesale level. Sampling weights range from 1 to 500. Units are selected independently between strata using simple random sampling without replacement within the size substrata. Use of these data requires Internal Revenue Service (IRS) approval. The Census Bureau will coordinate all additional necessary reviews.