E-Commerce Report: Fewer Online Shoppers in Canada

Oops. For those of us "in the business," this may come as something of a shock -- especially if we're using the 10:1 rule with US data aas our guidepost. Of course, the article (and maybe even the Ipsos-Reid study that spawned it) doesn't make as plain the following information and questions:

Spending was down by $18-million on $990-million year over year (which was already ($110-million down from 2001). Question: what about overall spending during the seasonal period: up or down? (i.e., does the online buying reduction reflect or contract the overall economy?

Users who have bought online was way up from previous years, but during the holidays only about half of those who had EVER bought online did so. Question: So what? Just because I've bought online once, I'm expected to do it all the time? The biggest electronic purchase this year for the holidays was digital cameras. For my several hundred bucks, I'm going to go touch and feel it (and probably buy it -- so I'm sure it'll be there Christmas/ Hannukah/ Eid morning).

Some things just aren't really suitable for purchase online -- for others, to boot -- such as things that cost way too much to ship, things that require fitting (and therefore going back to the STORE!), etc. Did the study find out what was purchased during the holiday season to check for correlation?

Whatever.

Posted by Grayson at January 26, 2004 08:33 AM