Exploring inventory trends in six U.S. retail segments

Our paper describes inventory trends for both public and private U.S. firms in six retail segments between 1993 and 2005. This period coincided with the deployment of large-store formats, multiple store formats and extensive channel blurring in the U.S. retail industry. Our analysis is based on aggregate segment-level data from the Annual Retail Trade Survey (ARTS), the Monthly Retail Trade Survey (MRTS), and the U.S. Bureau of the Census end-of-month inventory survey. We find that the end-of-month inventory significantly increased in four of the six retail segments studied and that, after controlling for sales and macroeconomic factors, the positive time trends for the end-of-month inventory remained significant.