Consumers across Canada are shopping online at a much higher rate this year and as the holiday season approaches more people will be going online in search for gifts, according to a survey conducted by Solutions Research Group.
The poll, carried out in August, included a total of 1,000 Canadians. It revealed that two thirds of respondents had bought something online in the past month, representing a 10 percent increase compared to results from the year before.
Only one third of those who participated in the survey said they would not shop online this holiday season, five percent lower than the figure from last year.
Approximately one quarter said they would do the majority of their shopping in retail stores, 29 said they would be buying in-store and online shopping at a similar rate, and 11 percent said that most of the products they will buy will be done online.
The majority (almost half) of Canadians who had shopped online were between the ages of 30 to 49, with 40 percent saying they were from Ontario.
They were asked what their top shopping destinations were, and Amazon was the most popular destination, followed by eBay, Walmart, Indigo, Best Buy, Sears, Old Navy, Future Shop, Costco and Beyond the Rack.
The Marketing Research and Intelligence Association has said that a margin of error cannot be assigned to online surveys, as they are not random and do not accurately represent the Canadian population as a whole.
