Tuesday, September 28, 2004

Households buy into e-commerce

CANADIAN households spent just over $3.0 billion shopping on the Internet on everything from airplane tickets to books, according to the 2003 Household Internet Use Survey.

An estimated 3.2 million Canadian households actively participated in e‑commerce in 2003, up from 2.8 million the year before. These households accessed the Internet from various locations, not just home. In total, they placed 21.1 million orders.

The $3.0 billion in orders placed over the Internet represents a 25% increase from 2002.  This growth rate far exceeds the modest increase in the number of households that accessed the Internet from any location in 2003.

Total electronic commerce spending represents only a fraction of the $688 billion in total personal expenditure in Canada last year.  However, households are increasingly using the Internet as a method of purchasing goods from both Canadian and foreign vendors.

For every $10 spent by households on Internet purchases last year, $6.90 was spent on Canadian websites.  On the other hand, Canadians spent almost $1 billion of their e-commerce dollars at non-Canadian websites.

Total spending on foreign websites continued to grow in 2003, but at a much slower pace than during the two previous years.

During the year, an estimated 4.9 million households, or 40% of the total, were Internet shoppers.  That is, they had at least one member who used the Internet to support purchasing decisions, either by window shopping or by placing online orders.

In two-thirds of the households, Canadians went beyond window-shopping and placed orders online.

For more information, contact Jonathan Ellison (613-951-5882), Science, Innovation, and Electronic Information Division.

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© 2004, Statistics Canada.