Canadians Spent $1.16 Billion For Gifts Online During 2001 Holiday Season, Dramatically Exceeding Expectations

Toronto, January 14, 2002 - An increase in the number of people purchasing online during the 2001 holiday season resulted in a dramatic increase in the total amount spent online during this past holiday season compared to last year, according to a new study from Ipsos-Reid, Canada's leading public opinion and marketing research company.

Online shoppers spent an average of $324 online for gifts, totaling an estimated $1.16 billion in expenditures. This exceeded the holiday expenditures that Ipsos-Reid projected in the fall by 34% and represents a 78% increase from the estimated $650 million that was spent for gifts online during the 2000 holiday season.

"Clearly this is positive news for Canadian etailers," said Chris Ferneyhough, Vice-President of Technology Research at Ipsos-Reid in Toronto. "The growth rate for online expenditures in this country remains extremely high. This does not appear to be a dying industry."

The increase was primarily due to more people shopping online than expected, and a slight increase in the average amount spent by online shoppers. Whereas 2.9 million Canadian Internet users¹ said they would definitely or probably buy online during the holiday season, 3.6 million actually did.

The growth also narrowed the gap between Canadians' and Americans' propensity to purchase online. Estimates of US online expenditures during the holiday season range from $9.5 billion to $12.4 billion, resulting in an estimated $52.20 spent online per American adult. The Canadian equivalent was $49.75, resulting in a gap between the countries of $2.45. Last year's gap was $15.43.

Also of good news for Canadian etailers is that 92% of online purchasers say they are likely to purchase online during the next holiday season, and 35% of repeat buyers say their online purchasing experience this year was better than last year, versus only 4% who say it was worse.

"All in all it is a very positive story," said Ferneyhough. "You have more people buying online, they are spending more than they expect to, they plan to come back and do it again, and the whole experience is improving. In light of the tough 2001 faced by so many etailers, leaner and meaner appears to be working."

As with last year most popular online holiday purchase items included books (37%), CDs, tapes, or videos (27%), clothing (23%), toys or games (18%), computer software (15%), and a whole range of other miscellaneous items.

¹ A Canadian Internet user is defined as a Canadian adult (18+) who uses the Internet for at least an hour per week. There are approximately 14 million Internet users in Canada.

The "Canadian Inter@ctive Reid Report" is the largest, most comprehensive and authoritative source of its kind about quarterly Internet trends in Canada. The results are based on two separate data collection instruments. In the first, 1,000 web users from Ipsos-Reid's Canadian Internet Panel are surveyed online. Panelists are chosen through random telephone surveys conducted on an ongoing basis across Canada. Results are complemented by a further 1,000 interviews via telephone with Canadian adults in order to verify results of the panel, and track issues among non-Internet users. Telephone interviews for this release were conducted between December 10th and 23rd, 2001 while the online data was collected between December 28th, 2001 and January 7th , 2002. These data are statistically weighted to reflect the population proportions of regular online users by online expertise and regional distribution. Our panelists represent approximately 14 million Canadian adult Internet users who are online for one hour a week or more (there are a total of 16.3 million adults who have Internet access).

With a national sample of 1,000 (for each component), one can say with 95% certainty that the overall results are within a maximum of 1773.1 percentage points of what they would have been had the entire population of Canada's regular online users been surveyed. The margin of error will be larger for sub-groupings of the survey population.

Established in 1979, Ipsos-Reid is Canada's leading marketing research and public opinion company. It is best known for the Angus Reid Express Poll, the most widely quoted source of public opinion in the country. Founded by Dr. Angus Reid, Ipsos-Reid has conducted extensive market and social research in 80 countries and in 40 languages, and serves clients around the world through more than 300-professionals and 1,000 data collection staff in eleven offices. The company is a member of the Paris-based Ipsos Group, ranked among the top ten research companies in the world.

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For more information on this news release, please contact:
Chris Ferneyhough, Vice President
Ipsos-Reid, Toronto
416.324.2900
[email protected]