There’s an ambitious new Canadian e-commerce site set to launch in May called Shop.ca, and its founders are hoping it will revolutionize the way Canadians buy online.
“Shop.ca is basically an ‘online shopping mall’ where we will have over 15 million products available for Canadians to buy on the website,” said Mark Daprato, chief marketing officer for Toronto-based company and former vice-president of marketing at Cara Operations. “And on the website they will be able to purchase everything, they’ll be able to do it out of one shopping cart, and everything will be on one bill.
“There will be about 26 categories for people to choose the products from – everything from electronics, to apparel, to housewares, to baby products and so on – and with every purchase, there will be a rewards program that people will have access to,” he said.
Founded by Drew Green and Trevor Newell, the site had a few high-profile thinkers who helped in its creation. Don Tapscott – the celebrated Canadian author, speaker and consultant who specializes in innovative business and technology strategies – chairs the site’s advisory board. Rana Florida, an internationally known expert in creativity, business and design, also provided her expertise.
“The Canadian online shopping experience is often a bad one,” said Tapscott, in a release. “Canadian consumers deserve better. They deserve a fun and rewarding online buying experience developed by Canadians, for Canadians, and they’re about to get it with Shop.ca.”
The online shopping mall concept means that numerous different retailers and manufacturers will be providing the merchandise. Daprato compares it to Amazon.com in the U.S.: “They’re a multi-merchant marketplace, and I think we’re going to be a Canadian equivalent of that.”
This type of site may be just what Canada needs to boost its lagging e-commerce activity, said Daprato, referring to a Boston Consulting Group study recently commissioned by Google. Released earlier this week, the results showed that Canada is behind its global peers when it comes to internet-based commerce.
The internet accounted for about $49 billion or 3% of Canada’s GDP in 2010, according to the study, which was lower than the G20 average of about 4.1% of GDP, putting Canada ninth among the G20 pack. By 2016, the online economy’s percentage of Canadian GDP is expected to reach 3.6%, falling further behind an expected G20 average of 5.3%.
One of the problems is that while many Canadian consumers already shop online, they do so through American sites. Daprato said Shop.ca will be a remedy for that.
“Everything on the site is by Canadians, for Canadians; everything we’re going to be distributing on the site is from within Canada,” he said. “So we’re going to be able to offer free shipping on all orders over $40 and free returns up to 365 days.
“People who buy online from the U.S. now experience serious frustration in terms of shipping charges and duty charges, so our goal is to bring this amazing selection with largely free shipping and returns, and really take away that pain for people who do love to buy online already. We’re going to make this a way better process for them.”
Although the site won’t begin selling merchandise until May, a version of it has already launched and consumers are being encouraged to sign up now to start accumulating rewards points and credits. The rewards program is one of the big selling features of the site, said Daprato: “With every purchase they get at least 0.5% in Shop.ca reward dollars back into their account. And the more they purchase or ‘socially share,’ in terms of [spreading the word about] what they’re purchasing, the rewards that they get actually increase up to a total of 2.5%.”
As Daprato noted, social media will be a big element of this, with shoppers being offered incentives to share ideas about products purchased via Facebook, Twitter, and on the site itself. “The real excitement that we have about this is not just the products that we have, but also the ability to make it fun,” he said.
