Cyber Monday Picking Up In Canada

According to Janet Davison in a CBC News report published early this morning, “Canadians spent $18.9 billion online last year, up 24 per cent over 2010.” So what does this imply for Canadian businesses? For one thing, it’s practically mandatory to accept Visa and MasterCard as methods of payment. For the most part, when people take to the internet to make their purchases, they do so with their credit cards in hand.

Today is Cyber Monday. It’s the phenomenon that has traditionally followed Black Friday (which was last Friday) for many years now. According to Wikipedia, the term “Cyber Monday” was coined in 2005 to refer to the new annual tradition in the United States. This tradition, of having prices drop significantly if purchased online for one day, has spread far beyond the U.S.

In Canada, consumers love shopping online. Davison writes of Sharon Ng Hayes, a Toronto blogger and avid shopper who prefers the worldwide web to the packed up malls any day of the week. Black Friday sees companies slashing their prices for people who wish to cram their stores on that particular day. That’s not for Hayes, however. Like many Canadians, she’d prefer to shop from the comfort of her own home.

Ng Hayes shops predominantly using American websites. But have Canadian retailers caught on to the Cyber Monday trend? Yes, Ng Hayes asserts. “A lot of the products that we could only get from the States we can actually get here now,” she is quoted as saying, “A lot of our Canadian retailers, they\’re getting online and they\’re investing in their e-shop and we as consumers are really benefiting from that.”

Evidently, Canadian retailers have come to understand that the internet is slowly but surely taking over as a top choice for Canadian consumers to do their shopping. In her article, Davison quotes Deloitte partner, Ryan Brain as saying that “the consumer has taken full control of the shopping experience.” His proof? A recent Deloitte survey found that nearly 28 per cent of Canadians prefer online shopping over the mall.

And he only sees this trend as one that is going to grow exponentially in the near future. In fact, he has found that sales at physical store locations are actually slowing as a result of the increasingly-popular online shopping craze. Such sales are “either flat or, in many ways, declining for certain retailers,” says Brain. And this is mainly because of the convenience of online shopping.

Not only is it a whole lot easier to jump on to a computer than it is to even find parking at a mall – let alone make your way through each store you need to visit – retailers are making online shopping a breeze. Davison writes that companies are making their websites more user-friendly and attractive, allowing for sign-up forms and checking out processes to be simplified.

As a Canadian business owner, the phenomenon of Cyber Monday should mean one thing to you: a significant increase in your online sales. And that, of course, requires your acceptance of credit cards. If you’re unable to take advantage of the online shopping craze taking place today because you don’t accept plastic, don’t let next year’s Cyber Monday pass you by. Call Canadian POS Corporation at 1-877-748-2884 today!