While I agree that all your stores being off has a low chance of happening, with just a 2% of direct data the chance that you have a chunk of stores off the country average screwing your estimations is higher. Historically, this site has missed many unexpected trend changes which suggests your spider sense has more of a weight on the total numbers than the direct data.
I am aware of how much of a challenge is increasing your direct coverage without the resources that come from selling a monthly report but it's clear that maybe the site team should focus more on that.