NAICS 41441Industry · 5-digitnational market

Jewellery and watch merchant wholesalers

This industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in wholesaling jewellery, finished gem stones, watches, silverware, and table flatware, hollowware or cutlery made of precious metal. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Establishments · CanadaA: 402
Under 10 employeesA: 83%

Size and shape

How many businesses there are and how small they are. Fragmentation is the first thing an entrant — or anyone selling software into this industry — needs to know, and it is one of the few things that is actually measured.

Canadian establishments by number of employeesA

1–424561%

5–98822%

10–194411%

20–49154%

50–9982%

100–19910%

200–49910%

500+0—

Of 402 Canadian establishments with employees, 83% have fewer than ten — an industry of very small operators.

Where they areA

Ontario19248%

Quebec11328%

British Columbia6817%

Alberta174%

Largest four provinces by establishment count. Establishments with employees only — sole operators with no payroll are not in this table, so in trades and personal services the true number of businesses is higher.

How many new establishments are still tradingA

Wholesale Trade, US · opened 2020

82.8%

1 year

64.3%

3 years

51.2%

5 years

34.4%

10 years

opened 2015

Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.

No US figure is shown. County Business Patterns is coded to the 2017 US edition of NAICS; this code either does not exist there, names a different industry, or is outside the programme's coverage (most of agriculture, rail, postal and public administration are). A figure is attached only where both the code and the title agree.

How businesses here compete

The structural profile of subsector 414, which every industry beneath it inherits. This is analyst judgment from how the subsector is organised — not research into this industry, and not a measurement.

national competitionmedium capitalUNVERIFIEDinherited from 414 Personal and household goods merchant wholesalers

The distributor's margin is squeezed from both sides as brands sell direct. Exclusive lines are the defensible position.

Who sets the price: Brands above, retailers below; the wholesaler holds neither.
The software it runs on: Distribution ERP, EDI and marketplace integrations.

Market screens and studies

Market-entry records filed along this branch of the hierarchy. A record at or beneath this code is about this industry; one above it is about something wider that contains it.

Screened one level up. Nothing is filed at this exact code; the screen for 4144 Personal goods merchant wholesalers covers it.

Operating businessScreenedfiled at 4144

Entertainment & Hobby Goods DistributorExecution decides

binding constraint: defensibility

A distributor of records, films, toys, books or sporting goods is reachable on paper: a warehouse, a line of credit and a catalogue, and half of Canada's 1,456 establishments here employ fewer than five people. The cut is what the distributor owns, which is nothing. The brand sits above it and the retailer below, and either can remove it. The best public view of the model is Alliance Entertainment, a listed US wholesaler of physical music, film, games and collectibles: fiscal 2026 net revenues of $1.149B at a 13.3% gross margin, leaving $13.1M of net income — about 1.1% of sales [A]. Its growth that year came from vinyl, CDs and physical film sold under studio relationships, including an exclusive physical-media arrangement with Paramount [A] — a licence a content owner grants to the distributor that already has the scale, and can re-let. The other end of the same position is Baker & Taylor, one of the largest US book wholesalers to libraries and schools, which wound down over the winter of 2025–26 after a sale collapsed [B]: no brand, no shelf, and nothing to sell but the service. An entrant gets the lines nobody larger wanted, on terms that last until the line works.

NAICS 41445 vendors named12 sourced figuresOpen →

Software serving this industry

The vertical software markets filed along the same branch — who sells to these businesses and who they would have to displace — and then the generic categories every business buys whatever it does.

No vertical software market has been recorded along this branch. What the subsector typically runs on: Distribution ERP, EDI and marketplace integrations.

And what every business buys · 25 generic categories

Sold to every industry rather than this one, so they are filed against the software industry's own code. The same few vendors recur across most of them.

Who works here

The occupations employed in Wholesale trade, most concentrated in it first. The share is measured against the whole sector, not this industry — the published cross-tabulation stops there.

Concentrated in this sectorA

Retail and wholesale trade managers One industry 16.6%

Retail salespersons and non-technical wholesale trade sales and account representatives Mostly one sector 9.2%

Labourers in processing, manufacturing and utilities Mostly one sector 8.7%

Managers in transportation and postal and courier services Mostly one sector 8.5%

Crane operators and water well drillers Mostly one sector 7.3%

Taxi, personal service and delivery service drivers Mostly one sector 6.8%

Supervisors, processing and manufacturing occupations Mostly one sector 6.1%

Machine operators and related workers in mineral and metal products processing and manufacturing One industry 5.8%

Machine operators and related workers in textile, fabric, fur and leather products processing and manufacturing One industry 5.5%

Machine operators and related workers in food, beverage and associated products processing One industry 5.3%

These jobs are mostly done here. An operator in this industry is competing for them against others in the same industry, not against the whole economy.

And the jobs every business has

Administrative and financial supervisors Across the economy 10.9%

Technical occupations in electronics and electrical engineering Across the economy 7.9%

Financial, insurance and related administrative support workers Across the economy 6.7%

Legislative and senior managers Across the economy 6.2%

Customer and information services representatives Across the economy 6%

Administrative services managers Across the economy 5.1%

Technical occupations in computer and information systems Across the economy 4%

Survey, statistical and data entry occupations Across the economy 3.3%

Administrative, property and payroll officers Across the economy 2.8%

Shoe repairers, shoemakers and upholsterers Across the economy 2.5%

Found across at least fourteen of the twenty sectors. But note the shape of this industry: 83% of establishments have fewer than ten employees, and at that size most of these roles are one person wearing several hats, or bought in from outside.

All 162 occupations →

Inside this industry

1 row sits directly beneath 41441. Each has a base report of its own.

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
414410	Jewellery and watch merchant wholesalers	402	screened at 4144

Alongside it, under 4144 Personal goods merchant wholesalers

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
41442	Book, periodical and newspaper merchant wholesalers	182	screened at 4144
41443	Photographic equipment and supplies merchant wholesalers	42	screened at 4144
41444	Sound recording merchant wholesalers	22	screened at 4144
41445	Video recording merchant wholesalers	21	screened at 4144
41446	Toy and hobby goods merchant wholesalers	256	screened at 4144
41447	Amusement and sporting goods merchant wholesalers	531	screened at 4144