The actual numbers are below of the estimates that pegged Canadian ecommerce at 6% of retail sales, and a widely cited estimate that retail ecommerce would account for 10% of all retail sales by 2019.
StatsCan reported out of USD 8.1 billion in total ecommerce retail sales in the first nine months of the year, USD 6.3 billion in sales went to digital only players such as Amazon.ca and Well.ca. The remainder of online retail sales, some USD 1.86 billion, was spent by consumers at traditional retailers with an expanding online footprint, such as Indigo, Lululemon and Hudson’s Bay.
As defined by Statistics Canada, ecommerce covers items that are delivered to a consumers’ home and those that are purchased online and picked up by customers at a store, the so-called “click and collect” model demonstrated by Canadian Tire and select Loblaw stores.
While just 0.5% of the sales for Canadian bricks and mortar retailers come from ecommerce, traditional retailers aiming to stay at the forefront of industry trends have been investing heavily in the model.
Almost a third of HBC’s planned capital expenditures for 2016 of between USD 700 million and USD 750 million are going towards technology investments, and the department store retailer recently made USD 60 million in upgrades to its Toronto distribution centre.
The StatsCan data also reflects the entire pool of bricks-and-mortar retailers in Canada, Strapagiel noted, including the multiple smaller retailers that do not sell their wares online.
Some of them achieve a much bigger segment of online sales than the overall sector. At Vancouver-based sportswear retailer Lululemon Athletica, digital sales accounted for about 17% of the retailer’s overall sales of USD 514.5 million in the Q2 2016.
Market research firm eMarketer predicts Canadian retail sales will grow 1.7% in 2016 to USD 522.6 billion, with a 15% increase in ecommerce sales.
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