Wholesale sales edged up 0.2 per cent in September after a 1.5 per cent decline in August, Statistics Canada revealed Thursday.

Higher sales of machinery, electronic equipment, food, beverages and tobacco products sector offset weakness in the automotive products sector, the agency said.

Excluding automotive products, which fell 1.9 per cent, sales rose 0.6 per cent. Within the automotive sector, sales of vehicles themselves were two per cent lower.

In volume terms, overall wholesale sales were up 0.3 per cent.

Overall, four of seven sectors increased during the month.

The largest increase came in the machinery and electronic equipment sector, which rose 1.2 per cent in September.

Following a 2.2 per cent decline in August, wholesalers in Ontario reported increased sales in September. The province, which accounts for about half of Canada's total wholesale sales, saw an increase of 1.2 per cent.

Wholesale sales fell in all four western provinces, with the largest declines in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, at 4.1 and 3.4 per cent, respectively.

Inventories decline

Wholesale inventories fell 0.9 per cent to $55 billion in September, the seventh consecutive monthly decline. Overall, eight of the 15 wholesale trade groups reported lower inventory levels in the month.

The increase in sales, combined with the decrease in inventories, translated into a decline in the inventory-to-sales ratio from 1.35 in August to 1.34 in September. That represents the lowest level for the metric since November 2008.

The inventory-to-sales ratio is a measure of the time in months required to exhaust inventories if sales were to remain at their current level.