Finding e-commerce trend reports for Canada isn’t easy and since Sitebrand happens to be based in Canada, I feel it’s my moral obligation to share some current trends I just discovered courtesy of Statistics Canada. You can read the full report, but allow me to pull some of the more interesting stuff into an at-a-glance post for immediate consumption along with some actionable ideas to wrap it up:

• Total Canadian Internet sales for 2007 grew 26% over 2006 hitting almost $63 billion
• Of the almost $63B in sales, about $58B are private sector and $5B are public sector
• Four verticals are responsible for the majority of online sales: wholesale trade (17%), transportation and warehousing (16%), manufacturing (15%), retail trade (10%). 

While impressive, here’s the reality. Internet sales in Canada still only represent about 2% of total sales revenue.  Considering this was reported to be at the 1% mark five years ago, we’re seeing a slow but steady climb. No need to fasten your seatbelt here.

To put this in perspective, let’s compare % of total sales revenue in Canada to the US.  According to a Q4 2007 e-commerce report from the US Census Bureau, Internet sales in the US accounted for 3.4% of total sales revenue in 2007. One year earlier, it was at 2.9% which means it went up a full half a percent in just one year…compared to Canada where it’s taken five years to go up one percent.

Rather than saying it over again, I’ll refer to a previous post I did on this topic of e-commerce in Canada. In a nutshell, I think the online experience for Canadians still has a way to go because expectations are not being fulfilled:

• Choices are still quite limited
• Information on web sites isn’t personalized/relevant
• Shipping is still a headache
• And so on…

To win in the race (lol – it’s hardly a “race”) for online market share from Canadian shoppers, the smart e-commerce marketer will address each of these very approachable issues from a Canadian perspective. Here are some little things that go a long way:

• Offer CDN pricing.
• For US sites, it’s smart to personalize the Canadian shoppers visit by showing the CDN flag and saying “we ship to Canada”.
• For CDN sites, don’t hide the fact you are Canadian – leverage it to the max and alleviate the “Do you ship to Canada?” question at the same time.
• Offer shipping options – land, air, foot etc.
• While 85% of the Canadian population speaks English, Canada is a bilingual country so offering English and French is a nice touch…offer every language that makes sense for your global market.
• Canadian spelling of the English language follows the British rules. Some commonly used words that are different include:
  •  
    • Comes in many flavors – in Canada it would be ”flavours”…
    • Payable by check - in Canada it would be “cheque” …
    • Visit our online resource center – in Canada it would be “centre” …

So there you have it, e-commerce trends are always evolving. What are you going to do to influence them? Hopefully this post offers some inspiration to the keeners.