Study Area Data: Wholesale Trade Output

Hello Tymon All Output values in IMPLAN are displayed in producer prices. In regards to your hypothetical, the Output displayed for the Wholesale sector is equivalent to Gross Retail Margin. You can find more about how margins work in IMPLAN at the link below. Applying Margins to Retail and Producing Sectors http://support.implan.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=451#retail-sectors Regards, IMPLAN Staff

Hello Again, I was wondering if you could help me out, since I am not an economist and I am trying to wrap my head around Gross Retail Sales vs. Gross Retail Margin. I understand the difference between the two, just not when it's from the perspective of wholesale operations. If I am trying to model an industry change in the (395) Wholesale trade sector, how would I determine the value of the industry sales if I had the financial statements of the wholesale trade company? Would it simply be the year's sales/revenue value or would you need to subtract COGS from sales? Furthermore, would the industry sales value be gross retail sales or gross retail margin? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Tymon

Hello Tymon, Option 1: Your sales/revenue value is in purchaser prices. You could select the wholesale sector, enter your sales as an Industry Sales value, and then select Gross Retail [u]Sales[/u] (unfortunately, the system states "retail sales", but rest assured that the wholesale margin is utilized). This tells the system to convert your sales value to the appropriate wholesale margin. Option 2: If your COGS information includes transportation costs, then you can subtract COGS from your sales to arrive at the wholesaler's operations value (Gross Retail[wholesale] [u]Margin[/u]). You would enter this value as your Industry Sales and select Gross Retail [u]Margin[/u]. Option 2.1: If you know the specific amount spent on transportation, you could also create an additional event for the appropriate transportation sector, enter the transportation costs as an Industry Sales value, and set LPP to SAM model value. This would capture the additional impacts from the transportation of goods to the wholesaler. If you have the appropriate information, we suggest Option 2 as it essentially utilizes your specific industry information to determine the wholesale margin. Regards, IMPLAN Staff