Canadians Spent $650 Million For Gifts Online During 2000 Holiday Season, Exceeding Expectations
Online shoppers spent an average of $228 online for gifts, totaling an estimated $650 million in expenditures, according to new findings from Ipsos-Reid, Canada's leading public opinion and market research company. This exceeded holiday expenditures that Ipsos-Reid projected in late September by more than $100 million and represents a dramatic increase from the estimated $282 million that was spent for gifts online during the 1999 holiday season.
"Our results show that this sector continues to experience significant growth, even in the face of declining investor sentiment and stock valuations," said Steve Mossop, Senior Vice-President and Internet spokesperson at Ipsos-Reid in Vancouver.
Not only did Canadians spend more online this holiday season, but they were also very satisfied with their online purchasing experiences. A total of 89% of online holiday shoppers indicate that they were satisfied with the selection of items available and 84% say they were satisfied with the delivery time of the items they ordered. Furthermore, 84% say they were satisfied with pricing, and 81% indicate they were satisfied with the customer support. Taking everything into consideration, a total of 81% of online holiday shoppers say that they were satisfied with their overall online holiday purchasing experience, including 46% who say they were very satisfied.
"Online retailers promised that they were going to be better prepared this past holiday season and evidently they delivered," said Mossop. "More significant is the finding that 97% of online Christmas shoppers indicate that they will return, and spend even more next year."
However, there was not a huge influx of new buyers as the vast majority of purchases were made by existing frequent online shoppers--who accounted for over 80% of expenditures.
"Although online spending has been accelerating at a rapid rate, there hasn't been significant gains this year in the proportion of Internet users who are purchasing online," said Mossop. "We know 34% of Canadian Internet users have ever made a purchase online, which is up seven points over Quarter 1 of 2000. The reality is that online retail expenditures this year continues to be driven by experienced Internet users."
Another positive sign for struggling Canadian online retailers is that 63% of most recent purchases were made from websites based in Canada--up significantly from 52% last year.
The most popular online holiday purchase items included books (43%), clothing (27%), CDs, tapes, or videos (26%), toys or games (21%), computers and software (14%), and a whole range of other miscellaneous items.
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, 1,200 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 1,700 interviews via telephone with Canadian adults in order to verify results of the panel, and track issues among non-Internet users. The most recent quarterly results were collected between December 27th, 2000 and January 7th, 2001.
These data are statistically weighted to reflect the population proportions of regular online users by online expertise and regional distribution. Our panelists represent approximately 12.4 million Canadian adult Internet users who are online for one hour a week or more (there are a total of 15.3 million adults who have Internet access).
With a national sample of 1,200 and 1,700 (for each component), one can say with 95% certainty that the overall results are within a maximum of 1772.8 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.
Results collected in November of 2000 and October of 1999 utilized an identical methodology and question wording, and similar sample size for accurate comparisons.
Established in 1979, Ipsos-Reid is Canada's leading market research and public opinion company. Its 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.
For more information on this news release, please contact:
Steve Mossop
Senior Vice-President
Ipsos-Reid
(604) 257-3200
or
Chris Ferneyhough
Senior Research Manager
Ipsos-Reid
(416) 324-2900
