Canadians buying more online
TORONTO —If the Canadian retail industry is looking for a new sales motto, it might want to consider, “Ship It, or Lose It.”
After years of dabbling in online shopping, eager consumers looking to spend their money on e-commerce are delivering a wake-up call to retailers.
New data from Canada Post that is due to be released on Tuesday found that in 2014, about 76 per cent of Canadian households shopped online.
Of those figures, about a quarter of Canadians have become “frequent” shoppers, which means they’re buying on the Internet four to 10 times per year, the data says.
“Consumers are dipping their toe into e-commerce, testing the waters, and becoming very quickly converted,” said Danielle Doiron, director of parcels and e-commerce market development at Canada Post.
“And the type of products they’re purchasing online has expanded.”
Doiron will present the Canada Post findings on Tuesday at the eTail Canada retail conference in Toronto.
The postal service conducted the study by tapping into data compiled from some retailers who ship packages through the mail and the customers who receive those packages.