This holiday many Canadians will skip the mall and shop from home or their mobile phones, according to a new study commissioned by eBay Canada. The study, conducted by Vision Critical, shows that 45% of Canadians intend to buy holiday gifts online this year.
Andrea Stairs, eBay Canada’s country manager, said the survey confirmed a trend eBay has seen internally of Canadians transitioning from researching products online to making e-commerce purchases.
“We’ve seen a strength in e-commerce for quite some time,” Stairs said. “When we do these surveys it’s great to see more Canadians thinking about online channels, both traditional online and mobile, for holiday shopping.”
To promote its mobile shopping experience, eBay Canada enlisted Edelman to run a three-day pop up Christmas market in Toronto, which opened Thursday. Styled like a traditional Christmas market, the company is showcasing toys, men’s and women’s clothing, tech gadgets and home and garden items purchased from online sellers as examples of the retailer’s holiday offering. Each item is displayed with QR code leading to a search inquiry for similar items when scanned. The market will be open 24 hours a day to reflect the convenience of online shopping.
Stairs said eBay has put a large investment in mobile development, noting it has apps for most platforms, including lesser-used operating systems like BlackBerry and Windows. Globally, the company expects to have processed $10 billion in mobile transactions by the end of 2012, a big jump from the $2 billion eBay users spent via mobile in 2010. Though the company hasn’t broken that number down by market, Stairs said eBay Canada has seen a large increase in mobile e-commerce in the past two years.
“We’re seeing a tremendous scaling of transactions on mobile,” Stairs said. “That’s one of the reasons we wanted to do the holiday market this year, to bring to life the fun and magic of shopping on mobile – this idea of being able to shop whenever inspiration strikes, wherever you happen to be.”
