The word 'balance' can be used in several different ways, for example: - to say that one side matches with the other side, in weight: the two kids sitting on the see-saw are the same weight, so the see-saw is perfectly balanced and not moving. - to say that one side matches with the other side, in other ways: because she eats a bit of each different type of food, but not too much unhealthy food, it is said that she has a "balanced diet" - from a financial or accounting perspective - a "balanced equation": after the accountant finished the bank reconciliation process, he found that everything was balanced - i.e. there were no discrepancies in the financial records, and all of the "debits" equaled all of the "credits" - from a financial or accounting perspective - the total amount remaining at a particular point in time: in a bank account, each transaction will add some money to the bank account, or remove some money form the bank account. After the transaction has occurred, we can find out the "balance", to know how much money is remaining in the bank account at that point in time. Look at the last column in the image (in comment below). In this case it's the fourth option - the total amount remaining at a particular point in time. In the sentence you provided, they mention "survey balance". My interpretation is that they mean to say the word "balance", but from the perspective of the survey results. At the top of this article they mention the survey occurs monthly, and in the paragraph you are looking at, they are talking about the December 2016 survey (I think). So they are saying that they did one survey every month, and the internet sales balance in December 2016 was higher than any of the other internet sales balances from any of the other previous months (except for November 2014, which was higher than December 2016).

Hi Wendy It means the figure that represents the total number of sales less any that may have been deducted for any reason (not sure what those reasons might be!). We use the term 'bank balance' in the same way to mean the actual money in a bank account after calculating any money paid in/taken out. Hope this helps Chris