The following changes were made with the release of the 2017 Annual Retail Trade Survey (ARTS) estimates:

• ARTS estimates were revised to reflect historical corrections to current sample data. Corrections are made to replace previously reported data with more accurate data received at a later date or to replace imputed data with reported data obtained from the company. For more information, refer to the Benchmarking section of the Annual Retail Trade Survey methodology page located below:
  
  https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/arts/technical-documentation/methodology.html

• The 2017 ARTS included the collection of detailed expense items as part of the Business Expenses Supplement (BES). This supplemental information is requested once every five years. The 2017 detailed expense estimates and measures of sampling variability are included in this release under the Annual Retail Trade Survey Detailed Operating Expenses: 2017 data section. Detailed expense items for ARTS were last released for 2012 and previously included operating expenses for the Accommodation and Food Services sector. Detailed expense estimates for the Accommodation and Food Services sector are now located in Table 5: Estimated Selected Expenses for Employer Firms on the following page:
  
  https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/sas/data/tables.html

• Starting with the collection of the 2018 survey year in April 2019, ARTS will no longer be collecting data from respondents on foreign inventories, the value of inventories stored outside of (or en route to) the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Because of this, the Inventories Held Inside and Outside the U.S. data table will not be published for survey year 2017 or for future survey years. This change does not impact the Estimated End-of-Year Inventories of U.S. Retail Firms by Kind of Business table, which will continue to be released to the public. The previously released foreign inventories data will still be available in the following location:
  
  https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/arts/data/tables.html

• ARTS will now be providing a reliability table (with measures of sampling variability) for the Estimated Annual Sales for U.S. Electronic Shopping and Mail-Order Houses (NAICS 4541) – Total and E-commerce Sales by Merchandise Line: 1999-2017 estimates table. Prior to this release, the measures of sampling variability for the Merchandise Lines were only available for the current and prior years as part of the Multi-Sector E-Stats release. This new table, the Estimated Measures of Sampling Variability for Annual Sales for U.S. Electronic Shopping and Mail-Order Houses (NAICS 4541) - Total and E-commerce Sales by Merchandise Line table, will cover 2004 through 2017. The table can be found in the tab labeled “Merchandise Lines (4541)” in the following location:
  
  https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/arts/tables/2017/reliability_tables.xls


• Starting with the release of the 2017 Annual Retail Trade Survey, ARTS will no longer display historical data back to 2011 in the Supplemental E-commerce tables. Going forward, the Supplemental E-commerce tables will only display data for the years associated with the current sample (2015, 2016, and 2017). These tables are available in the following location:
  
  https://census.gov/data/tables/2017/econ/arts/supplemental-ecommerce.html