Is Canadian Ecommerce Lagging?

I’ve been working in Canada now for the best part of eight months, after spending the last few years in the UK. As a guy who starts to get twitchy when there’s no Wifi around, you might imagine that I’m a pretty heavy online shopper. You’d imagine right.

Now that I’m back in Canada, my online shopping habits have taken a serious dip.

A Typical Canadian Online Shopping Experience

A few weeks ago, it was my father’s birthday. He loves to cook (like father , like son.) Among other things, I thought it would be a lot of fun to buy him a high-end chef’s knife. I eventually settled on a Mac chef’s knife.

Like any internet-addicted guy with a credit card, I hit Google with a pretty simple query: Mac Chef’s Knife. I expected to find a knife, punch in my credit card number, and have the knife in my hands (er, in a gift wrapped box in my hands) within a few days.

It was not to be.

The organic listings gave me a choice between info/brochure sites, including Mac Knife Canada’s local distributor and American ecommerce sites. Not knowing the legality of shipping a razor sharp eight-inch blade across the border, I was really looking for a Canadian site. (It’s also nice to pay in Canadian dollars and not get hit for customs fees.)

The sponsored listings weren’t any better. They gave me the same official Mac distributor in Canada, and four irrelevant results for generic cooking shops – none of whom sold Mac knives or were Canadian.

Needless to say, I was baffled. I had made a pretty clear search, brand and item, and I had my credit card in my hand. Yet, there was no way for me actually buy the thing online from a Canadian site. In the end, I actually called the Mac Knife distributor to find out who carried Mac products near me. I physically walked to the store to buy it.

Running the same search in the UK yields immediate purchase options, including the mighty Amazon.

Is Canada Behind the Times?

This is a trend that we’ve seen over and over again when researching Canadian versions of the markets we serve in the UK. Lots of brochure sites, with no way to buy online.

I’m more than a little curious about the reasons why the Canadian ecommerce sector seems so immature when compared to the UK and the United States. Is it our postal system? Are the prices not right? Do we just prefer to fondle stuff in the store?

I’ll be keeping my ear to the ground and watching for stats to see if I can figure this one out.