The U.S. Census Bureau released an experimental data product featuring real dollar wholesale sales and inventories estimates. Monthly Wholesale Real Dollar Estimates were created from the nominal Monthly Wholesale Trade Survey (MWTS) sales and inventories series using product weights developed from existing Census Bureau data releases and price indexes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). 

This release includes data tables containing real dollar sales, inventories, and inventories-to-sales ratio estimates and corresponding residuals for Total Merchant Wholesalers, except Manufacturers' Sales Branches and Offices, as well as the two 3-digit and eighteen 4-digit North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) wholesale subsectors. Monthly estimates are available from January 2012 forward.

New data products, like these experimental statistics, are proving to be extremely valuable to our data users and provide additional insight on the state of the economy.

This is the second version of these experimental data. The first version only had sales estimates, whereas the second version includes inventories and inventories-to-sales ratios. The Census Bureau plans to continually refine the series and invites users to provide feedback on how to improve this experimental product.

Feedback can be shared by email at eid.wholesale.indicator.branch@census.gov.

September 19, 2022