The United States Code, Title 13, authorizes this survey and provides for mandatory responses.
Data collection begins the first week after the close of the year.
Samples are re-selected every 5 years and updated annually, most recently for the 1996 reference year. The annual survey consists of all monthly survey panel firms that had payrolls during the reference year, plus administrative data or imputed values to account for nonemployer retail businesses. There are currently about 31,000 companies in the monthly sample. The annual survey uses 2 of the 3 rotating monthly panels, and the special monthly panel. Since 1977, the monthly retail trade survey has been benchmarked to the annual retail trade report.