According to a survey by J.C. Williams Group of 1,312 Canadians who had purchased online in the past six months, 32% had made five or more purchases and 68% had made one to four purchases.
Canadian e-commerce is growing substantially. According to Statistics Canada, total e-commerce sales were CAD39.2 billion ($32.4 billion) in 2005, up 38.4% from 2004. The figures include both private and public sector sales over the Internet.
The percentage of Canadian retailers that have a website grew to 42% in 2005 from 38% in 2004, according to Statistics Canada.
One thing that Canadian consumers are interested in is the potential to shop or buy online and then pick up their merchandise at a retail store or return it there. According to the J.C. Williams survey, 38% of respondents had bought online and picked up their purchase in a retail store in the past six months.
Just 17% had returned online purchase to retail stores, J.C. Williams found.
Jeffrey Grau, a senior analyst at eMarketer, says "Online buyers who visit a store to pick up or return products frequently make impulse purchases. Numerous recent consumer studies have shown that multi-channel shoppers, on average, spend more with a retailer than single-channel shoppers."
Getting a customer in the store also introduces them to things they may not have seen online, which could spur additional purchase activity.
The J.C. Williams study also found that 73% of Canadian online shoppers prefer to pay with credit card. However, 27% prefer other methods. By comparison, a 2005 study by Princeton Survey Research Associates for Consumer WebWatch found that 26% of US Internet users don't use credit cards online.
Among Canadians, concern about credit card safety was the top barrier to online shopping, according to J.C. Williams.
For more information on e-commerce in Canada, sign up to be notified when eMarketer's Canada Retail E-commerce report is issued in 2007.
Detailed data on US e-commerce can be found in eMarketer's US Retail E-Commerce report.