Despite a massive increase in online sales across the world as a whole, Canadian retailers are experiencing a much slower increase in the digital arena. In 2014, e-commerce was only about 6 percent of total retail spending in Canada. This is 3 percent less than the U.S. e-commerce rate. There is much speculations about why Canadian retailers lag behind, from web infrastructure to high transportation costs. Whatever the reasons, Canadian retailers must focus on increasing traffic to their websites or continue to lose customers to foreign retailers.
According to a recent report, stores in the Metro Vancouver area and other metropolitan areas lost about $1.6 billion in retail sales this year to foreign online retailers. Compared to the UK and the U.S., Canada also has a lower share of online retail sales. For example, Canadian company Indigo owns 1.5% of Canada’s ecommerce industry, while United States company, Amazon, has almost 24% of Canada’s ecommerce market.
But Canadian retailers could see a drastic increase in Canadian online sales if more retailers actually moved online. A 2014 Retail Council of Canada report noted that 61% of independent retailers still had no online presence at all. This figure is especially worrisome considering that 68 percent of British Columbians chose to shop online instead of in-store last year. This was a 19 percent increase over 2013. Plus Canadians are projected to spend 50% more online between 2014 and 2019. These trends indicate that even small merchants won’t be able to afford not to have an online presence within a few years. If they do not build a working online presence, there is a high chance of job loss and store closures.
Canadian merchants must invest in creating user-friendly, online retail environments as online sales take the world by storm. eMerchantBroker is here to assist online merchants with their online payment processing needs. To open your new high risk Canadian merchant accounts, just complete our low hassle online application or call us at 1-800-621-4893. Remember that EMB has a track record of successful online merchant sales, and will provide you with a competent and safe payment processor 24 hours a day.