By Adam Ramsay

In what may come as a surprise to many, a new survey of 4,013 people by Angus Reid Global has determined that less Canadians will complete the bulk of their holiday shopping online this year, when compared to our neighbours in the United States and friends across the pond in the UK. While more than 20% of Brits and 14% of Americans claim that they will do most, if not all of their purchasing in e-stores rather than bricks-and-mortar locations, only 6% of Canucks vow to do the same.

The poll doesn’t shed much light on why Canadians are more hesitant to shop online compared to our counterparts, or rather, if there is still simply a bigger desire in this country to cross items off of lists using the more traditional outlets of retail malls and shopping centres. There is also little evidence that Canadians will ‘showroom’ this year – browse in store and then purchase online – or vice versa. 

One interesting piece from the survey noted that almost one in three shoppers in this country only buy from physical stores. Mark Startup, who is the vice-president of the B.C. office with the Retail Council of Canada, says the growing perception that people are staying away from physical locations isn’t accurate. “There’s a lot of people predicting the end of bricks-and-mortar shopping,” he said. “But when you look at the stats, and you segment them by commodities and so forth, you begin to see a different picture.”

While Canadians may be among the nations that will do the least amount of online buying this Christmas, they will lead in the category of credit card use for the purchases they do make. In fact, Canadian respondents claimed that almost half (41%) of all their Christmas gifts will be paid for with plastic. That number is compared to only 30% in the US and less than 22% in in the UK.

Many of Canada’s largest shopping malls, retail centres and communities in general are continuing to see a rise in new square footage and commercial development which will continue into 2014, and will only help some of the biggest retailers in this nation to not only maintain, but also grow sales from their physical locations. How that will affect e-commerce growth in this nation remains very closely watched.


[Source: Angus Reid Global]

We’re taking suggestions for Canada’s top retail stories of 2013. We’ll report them towards the end of the month. We expect that a few suggestions will be obvious, including such stories as Loblaws buying Shoppers Drug Mart and Sobeys buying Canada Safeway.

What news stories do you think we should include in our top 10 of 2013? Please feel free to submit your choices below, on our Facebook page, or to our Twitter feed. 

Last month we asked readers what stores they’d like to see in Canada, and responses flooded in. Here are your top 10 choices:

1) Uniqlo

2) DSW Designer Shoe Warehouse

3) Muji

4) Bloomingdale’s

5) Trader Joe’s

6) Kohl’s

7) Macy’s

8) Marks & Spencer

9) Madewell

 (by J. Crew)

10) Barney’s New York

Many of these choices are of no surprise to us. Our articles about Uniqlo consistently have the highest readership on Retail Insider and given Uniqlo’s popularity, it’s very surprising it hasn’t already opened in Canada. We’ve been told that Uniqlo could still be introduced to Canada through the Hudson’s Bay Company, though we’re not aware of the progress of any current negotiations.

DSW Designer Shoe Warehouse was also an expected choice. The company carries thousands of pairs of shoes. We’ve got good news: DSW is already looking to expand into Canada To make things even better, The Shoe Company is reportedly looking to open a chain of similar shoe stores Bloomingdale’s could open in Canada and for a while it was in talks with The Hudson’s Bay Company to open in-store concessions. The deal unfortunately fell through, though Hudson’s Bay instead bought Saks Fifth Avenue, which it will bring to Canada within the next couple of years.

Specialty grocery store Trader Joe’s is definitely a top pick of ours, and we think reasonably priced organic food would do well in Canada. We’re not yet aware any intentions for the company to open in Canada. Interestingly, an attempt by a Vancouver-based entrepreneur to sell Trader Joe’s products in Canada was met with litigation Kohl’s is looking at the Canadian market, though it may be deterred by recent problems encountered by Target’s Canadian expansion. We’ve been told that Kohl’s could be a possible purchaser of Sears Canada, though we’ve also been informed that Sears Canada could be purchased by a large Canadian retailer (and we don’t mean Hudson’s Bay).

Macy’s was a surprising choice in our opinion, given how similar it is to our own Hudson’s Bay. Having visited both stores regularly, we’re seeing Hudson’s Bay actually surpassing Macy’s as a retailer in many respects, and we’ll do an article specifically discussing this.

We’ll be contacting these retailers directly, letting them know that you want them in Canada. Are there any other stores you’d like to see open in Canada? We’ll update this article in the New Year. Please leave your comments below or follow this link to our Facebook page. Also, you can leave comments via our Twitter