"old" Internet / E-commerce Statistics

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INTRODUCTION

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Before I did a big update to this page in May 2006, I thought it would be possibly useful in the future to be able to look back and see some of the e-commerce and internet stats we were dealing with in 2002, 2001 and 2000 since that information helped people make decisions about what do plan for in 2003, 2004 and 2005. So the information below is what was "cut out" of the 2006 update.

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comparisons The following graphs are from the Global Internet special report - January 2000. as used by Substance Consulting   http://www.gdsourcing.com/substance/datac.htmVery Very useful page on their web site  http://www.gdsourcing.com/substance/dcey1.htm Source: Ernst & Young (January, 2000 )  http://www.ey.com/global/gcr.nsf/Canada/Canada_home   . WTGR notes that the large professional service firms such as Ernst & Young, KPMG, Price Waterhouse Coopers etc. are very good sources of data since they are all competitively trying to be seen as having the best understanding of the new on-line business community - therefore they put up a lot of good, free, information on their web sites. WTGR .  Comparison of Key Internet Shopping Statistics Canada United States % of households owning a PC 56% 53% % of households connected to the Internet 39% 34% % of households buying items on-line 9% 17% . . . Number of purchases made last year 7 13 Number of sites shoppers purchased from last year 5 11 . . . % of on-line shoppers that have purchased through an auction site 32% 51% % of purchases made on-line which would not have been made elsewhere 45% 43% % of on-line purchases unplanned (impulse) 18% 16% . . . % of on-line shopping trips resulting in an on-line purchase 38% 51% % of on-line shopping trips resulting in a store purchase 27% 25% . what is useful to see in the information above? If you are looking to see how far the internet has penetrated the consumer household, an obvious limitation would be the numbers of consumers with computers, (only 56% of Canadian households have PCs) unlessssssssssss, you had future vision and could see how people will be accessing the web in 2001 with handheld instruments that negates having to use a PC at home. WTGR .  Canada-US comparisons? Well, on a per household basis, we are more wired than they are (we have slightly more PCs, and slightly more of those are connected to the Internet), yet Americans are leading in using the net for buying things. There are a couple of suggestions as to why that may be the case. 1. The largest number of sites from which to buy are U.S. based, which is a disincentive to Canadian shoppers who have to consider the exchange rate disadvantage and additional chsipping costs 2. Sociocultural considerations might be brought in to explain why Canadians are a bit more hesitant to try buying on the Internet - eg. culturally we don't like auctions as much in Canada as they do in the U.S., therefore in online considerations, it is not surprising to see 51% of U.S. shoppers have bought at an auction whereas only 32% of Canadians did. Most Frequently Purchased Categories Canada United States Computers and computer related 68% 66% Books 54% 62% CDs, recorded music 40% 60% Clothing and accessories, women's 29% 30% Electronic products, small 20% 35% Magazines 20% 28% Hotel reservations 19% 22% Air travel reservations 17% 28% Videos, filmed entertainment 16% 33% Clothing and accessories, men's 14% 25% Cosmetics, health & beauty 13% 32% Event tickets 13% 18% Flowers 11% 20% Investment or financial services 11% 10% Toys 11% 35% Artwork, posters 7% 14% Car rental reservations 7% 14% Clothing and accessories, children's 7% 25% Food, drink 5% 13% Sporting goods 5% 15% Cars, trucks, motorcycles, boats 3% 7% Household goods, larger (furniture, major appliances) 3% 9% Other 10% 18% as used by Substance Consulting   http://www.gdsourcing.com/substance/datac.htm on their web site

 

"Canadian Internet Use Keeps Climbing" Nov 2000

Globe and Mail, Report on Business article , November 17th, 2000 "Canadian Internet Use Keeps Climbing" by Guy Dixon quoting a Pricewaterhouse Coopers study this article was online at  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/gam/ROB/20001117/RNETT.html "Nearly half of all Canadian homes are now hooked up to the Internet, more than in either the United States or leading European countries" Dixon quotes from the Pricewaterhouse Coopers study The study says "more than 48 per cent of Canadian households now have Internet access, up from 43 per cent last year [1999]" "This compares with 43 per cent of homes in the United States, 38 per cent in Australia and 26 per cent of households in Britain, France and Germany combined" Dixon explains that "Most of the growth in Canadian home Internet use this year has been due to a rapid expansion in Quebec. About 42 per cent of households in that province are now wired to the Web, up from only 29 per cent last year, as more and more French-language Web sites are created..." However, the fast pace of the trend may be ebbing. Dixon notes that ".. for the rest of Canada, the rate at which Internet use has grown has slowed. Fifty per cent of Canadian homes outside of Quebec now have Internet access, up from 48 per cent last year." A rise of 2% over 12 months is quite a drop from the fast pace of increase between 1998 and 1999.   Dixon says "...Americans are spending less time on-line, down to four hours a week from five hours last year. This decline in the United States "may be a sign of the medium's maturity and that people are becoming more economical and efficient in their use of the Internet," the study said." . . Pricewaterhouse Coopers is another one of the big accounting/management consulting firms that are trying to secure their reputation among their existing clients as well as get some publicity for attracting new clients. Whenever you read a newspaper article which has 75% of the content based on somebody else's material, eg. in this case a study by an accounting firm, the best thing to do is go to the web page for that company and see if you can find a link to the original study, and, in most cases you can..  www.pwcglobal.com/ca/eng/main/home/index.html in Nov 2000, the study was noted on the PWC site at  www.pwcglobal.com/extweb/ncsurvres.nsf/docid/0AD8B61796C17A148525699700708245 By going to the PWC site you can learn that the survey was compiled from interviews with 802 Canadians. Sometimes this information (the number in the sample) is helpful to know in order to guage the validity of the conclusions. WTGR permission to quote from Price Waterhouse Coopers given by Karalee Larochelle and Peter Lyman in an email Nov 20th, 2000. Copies of emails kept on file in the permissions binder.

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July 2001 We spend a lot of time online

Canadian Internet July 2001   An article in June 2001 issue of ComputerWorld explains that Canada is Number One in the amount of time people spend online.

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The Insurance Canada website also had other related articles: Canadian Internet Use Continues to Grow http://www.insurance-canada.ca/ebusiness/canada/EmktrCanada200209.php   "... eMarketer estimates that 14.9 million individuals currently use the internet in Canada . With a forecasted 13.9% compound annual growth rate, the Canadian internet user population should grow to 21.4 million by 2004. .    As in much of the world, the most common use of the internet in Canada is for e-mail and general browsing. However, as the following data from Statistics Canada illustrates, the activities that had the greatest growth since 2000 were electronic banking, the search for government information, online gaming and purchases of goods and services."

 
 

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Christmas Season 2001 . . In a separate part of this web site we have a special page devoted to the holiday season and online shopping growth. On part of an Ipsos-Reid study ends with an interesting note about the total impact of online shopping in Canada. WTGR According to Ipsos-Reid  "Internet shopping appears to have stalled at 21 per cent of the adult population, ... total online shopping in Canada accounts for only about 2 per cent of all retail sales".

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Christmas Season 2003   story by Dana Flavelle, Business Reporter 2003 Dec 05 Flavelle says "According to consulting firm J.C. Williams Group, nearly a third of Canadians (33%) say they plan to shop online this holiday season."

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Online  shoppers in Canada       The question of to what degree Canadian business is serving the e-business community compared to American companies

Some Canadian e-tailers expressed discouragement about return on their e-commerce investments by saying that too many Canadian customers were predisposed to buying products and services from American sites, and that Canadian sites were having to play catch-up, - which might be very hard if a big block of consumers have already established "connections" with US e-tailers. Is this early momentum built by American sites something that Canadian sites will have a hard time overcoming? WTGR Susan Pigg writing in the Toronto Star June 17th, 2000 writes "More online shoppers buying Canadian" Pigg reports in June 2000 that "In just a year, the number of Canadian online shoppers buying from Canadian sites has more than doubled from 28% to 58%." In the same article, Chris Ferneyhough of polling giant Angus Reid Group says Canadians do indeed want to be able to buy from Canadians so this will help boost Canadian retailers. Pigg concludes her article by saying that one of the reasons why there are more Canadians buying Canadian sites is simply, duh, because there are more Canadian sites offering products and services.     Business-To-Consumer Online Sales Expected To Reach  $4.1 Billion In 2000 -- More Than Double 1999’s Spending   http://www.Angusreid.com/MEDIA/CONTENT/displaypr.cfm?id_to_view=1043 Subtitle: More dollars than ever being spent at Canadian e-retailers: Angus Reid/J.C. Williams Group Survey    "J.C. Williams Group and Angus Reid asked Canadians where their e-retail purchases are being made, and found that Canadian retailers have made  exceptional gains in a relatively short period of time. Back in Q1 of 1999, 62% of online purchases were  made at U.S. sites, and 28% at Canadian sites. By Q4 of 1999, this had reversed, and 52% of purchases were at Canadian sites compared to 44% at U.S. sites. The most recent wave of the survey, conducted in the first quarter of 2000, has shown that the momentum that Canadian retailers  gained over the Christmas shopping season of 1999 has carried over into 2000. The joint study found that 58% of Canadian online shoppers in Q1 of 2000 made their most recent purchase at a Canadian site (and only 37% at a U.S. site)" A couple of days before Susan Pigg wrote her article in rival newspaper the Toronto Star, Michael Petrou wrote in the Financial Post June 10th, 2000,  a piece titled "Internet Shopping Still Lags in Canada"  http://www.nationalpost.com/financialpost.asp?s2=eworld&f=000610/313818.html Petrou quotes from a soon to be released study by the Boston Consulting Group that says many Canadians browse sites, but few actually buy anything. Petrou also notes thatthere are a significant number (54%) who abandon an online shopping trip when they find out the U.S. e-tailer doesn't ship to Canada. Petrou added that a "study recently released by ComQuest Research Inc. reveals 61% of Canadian Internet users say they're "not very comfortable" or "not at all comfortable" with shopping online....  The same study says the number one reason Internet users don't shop online is because of security concerns." How much do Canadians buy on the internet compared to Americans Forrester Research Inc. of Cambridge, Mass. says by the end of 1999 9% of Canadian households had made a purchase over the Internet 23% of American households had made a purchase over the Internet

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Online  shoppers in Canada 2000 Online  shoppers in Canada 2000

On the heels of the article "Internet Shopping Still Lags in Canada" we have a Financial Post article Sept 1st, 2000 which is titled "Small Businesses in Canada are 69% Internet Savvy" By Vito Pilieci Leaving us to question is business doing well, or poorly in dealing with the potential of the Internet. Different reporters and columnists can't seem to agree.     . Pilieci's article is based on a survey released by the CFIB - Canadian Federation of Independent Business. In reviewing articles forecasting how well or particular trends are, we should always consider the source. Most journalists don't write from thin air, their articles on a trend invariably quote and industry association executive, or report, or they quote and expert from a well know company. Sometimes the source has a neutral perspective, but most times they are slanted pro or con. In the case of the CFIB, the purpose of this association is to support the efforts of SME's (small and medium sized enterprises) in Canada so it would obviously try to find "markers" which show its members are "with it" when it comes to new technologies. WTGR .  CFIB's home page is at On CFIB's site, you can view the original press release at  http://www.cfib.ca/mcentre/mwire/releases/tm83100.asp "Results of a national survey conducted during the second quarter of this year reveal that 69 per cent of the 9,246 small- and  medium-sized businesses surveyed are now connected to the  Internet – up from 61 per cent for the same period in 1999. The  results also show that more than one third of small firms have     entered into the arena of e-commerce. The findings are based on personal interviews conducted by the Canadian Federation of  Independent Business (CFIB) in every region of the country." "CFIB’s chief economist and director of research, Ted Mallett said: "The small business sector has been adopting general Internet technology very rapidly during the past few years. Now we are seeing small firms increasingly embracing more complex and sophisticated e-business models. The most basic application is  of course e-mail, and it is used by virtually every business that is  on-line. So for the purposes of this study, e-businesses were defined as firms using the Internet to market their services or make transactions on-line -- meaning they are maintaining a web  site, purchasing for their business on-line or are selling their     products over the Internet." In total, Mallett said that 35 per cent of Canada’s small- and medium-sized firms can be considered e-businesses." The reason we feature the CFIB is in respect of the fact that the fastest growing area of business (offline and online) in the late 1990's and early millenium, is small business. WTGR

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Online  shoppers in Canada 2001

article by Kate MacNamara   Financial Post - based on Statistics Canada research  Friday, September 20, 2002 "Canadians spent almost  $2-billion shopping online in  2001, a jump to nearly double  estimated 2000 levels." "Research by Statistics  Canada shows that some 2.2 million households shopped online last year (up from 1.5-million in 2000); of those households, each spent an average $880." "... spending online is rising for purchases of travel, clothing and  entertainment items like tickets. And those increases are expected to continue in categories like travel where airlines have aggressively pushed customers to online purchasing." "Statistics Canada data also show that more than 75% of Canadian online shoppers worry about privacy and security" "Canadians did the majority of their online spending with Canadian firms, while $682-million worth of their purchasing was spent abroad. U.S. boarder and shipping  slowdowns -- prompted by security fears ignited last fall -- likely dampening foreign purchasing."   . Canadians are buying a lot more stuff online, but online is still a small percentage of total buying. "While the growth appears strong, online spending still represents less than one half a percentage of the $621-billion Canadians racked up in total personal expenditure last year" Stats Canada WTGR .

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International use of the Internet

. Asian use of the Internet and e-commerce transactions effects Canada in two ways 1. Asians and Asian-Canadians living in Canada may have high expectations of the internet and e-commerce community online in Canada - based on their high use in their respective home countries 2. Canadian companies wanting to sell products and services to Asian companies can expect a higher degree of interest in e-commerce than compared to North America and Europe - which will be a consequence of the Technological Environment and the Economic Environment . WTGR .  From the ClickZ section on Trends & Statistics  www.clickz.com/stats/ "Online Asians Lead in Income, E-commerce Demographics" Story online by Robyn Greenspan, March 15, 2004  .     E-Commerce by Ethnicity Group 1+ Purchases/Year 5+ Purchases/Year Total 41.1% 22.5% White 45.5% 25.8% Black 27.1% 12.3% Hispanic 27.7% 13.8% Asian 55.8% 30.9% Source: The Media Audit Greenspan begins his article by explaining one of the reasons Asians in the U.S. may spend more money online is because they have more money to spend ! "While relatively low in numbers, the U.S. Asian population exhibits financial strength. Measured at just 4 percent of the Internet population, according to Jupiter Research (a unit of this site's corporate parent), 42 percent of Asian Internet households earn $75,000 or more annually, compared to 35 percent of Caucasians and 26 percent of African-Americans. " In Canada, in Toronto and Vancouver, the population of people online of Chinese and Korean ethnicity is much higher (proportionately) than in the U.S., but we have not been able to find specific statistics to verify this] WTGR "Nearly 31 percent of online Asians have made five or more Internet purchases in a year, and roughly 56 percent have made at least one purchase — overtaking the general Internet population and other online minorities... Asians as an ethnic group [in the United States] are making more purchases via the Internet than all of the other ethnic groups" this table comes from www.clickz.com/stats/big_picture/demographics/article.php/3326041#table - original stats from www.themediaaudit.com Permission to quote given by email from Gus Venditto, Editor-in-Chief, Jupiterweb | internet.com | ClickZ | DevX | Earthweb |, Jupitermedia Corporation    www.edst.educ.ubc.ca/tern/Biblio/InternetUse.htm See this paper by Roger Boshier & Yan Huang of UBC which discusses the use of the Internet among Chinese people in Vancouver

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  Prof. W. Tim G. Richardson © www.witiger.com