CACI expenditure estimates cover both food and non-food items and are available for any geographic area in United Kingdom. The data is built using agreed market sizes and consumption profiles from the Family Expenditure Survey (FES), which is undertaken by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

For many people the workplace is an important focus of activity and work-based spending forms a high proportion of national retail spend.

With consumers travelling relatively long distances to shop, large amounts of retail spend can move across local authority boundaries. Balance of Retail Trade (BART) reports give information on the movement of consumer spend by local authority area and the origin of spend for individual shopping locations.

For those local authorities looking to understand where their residents shop and how much money flows out to shopping centres outside their area, BART reports give a detailed picture of local shopping patterns.