Annual Wholesale Trade - Commodities, 2024

Released: 2026-10-09

Canadian wholesalers buy and sell a wide variety of commodities, including petroleum products, motor vehicles, pharmaceuticals, wood products, clothing and a large selection of food and beverage products.

The Annual Wholesale Trade Survey measures both the sales and costs of goods sold for these and other products, classifying them according to the North American Product Classification System.

In 2024, Canadian wholesalers sold $1.4 trillion worth of commodities, excluding wholesale trade commissions. Compared with 2023, overall sales excluding commissions decreased 0.3%. In dollar terms, declines were led by the automobiles, light trucks and vans subclass (-$9.5 billion; -7.7%), followed by oilseeds and grains (-$5.8 billion; -11.8%). Higher sales in 34 of 66 commodity subclasses were not significant enough to outpace the declines.

The top five commodity subclasses accounted for 49.6% of all sales in both 2023 and 2024. In 2024, the largest subclass, in dollar terms, was petroleum and petroleum products, comprising a 26.1% share of total wholesale sales, up from 25.9% in 2023. Sales in this subclass increased $1.7 billion to reach $372.6 billion in 2024.

Chart 1 shows the consistency in trends between the total sales of wholesale services (except commissions) and petroleum and petroleum products from 2017 to 2024, given that it is the largest subclass.

Chart 1 
Sales of total wholesale services and petroleum and petroleum products, 2017 to 2024

In 2024, 33 of 66 commodity subclasses saw their cost of goods sold decrease. Cost of goods sold refers to the cost of purchased goods that were resold during the reporting period. In Canada, the total cost of goods sold was down $13.7 billion compared with 2023 to $1.2 trillion in 2024. This was led by declines in the automobiles, light trucks and vans subclass, down $9.8 billion (-8.7%).

Contact information

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