By Dr. Maurice Yeates, Vincent Kakuk and Dr. Tony Hernandez

The CSCA’s annual listing of leading retailers in Canada has been augmented in 2019 with a breakdown provided for both Retail Conglomerates (RCG) and the Retail Chains (RCH) they control (as ranked by total estimated retail sales). Why focus solely on the top 100 conglomerates and chains ranked by sales? Within the top 100 retailers in Canada can be found those organizations whose economies of scale enable them to exert a significant influence on Canada’s retail economy. For example, in Fiscal 2018/2019 we find that the level of corporate concentration amongst Canada’s top 10 retail conglomerates has increased, however, concentration for the top 100 retail conglomerates as a group has declined as the industry is increasingly being impacted by online retail sales.