多伦多信息港（记者吴越报道）：最新的一项调查显示，越来越多的加拿大人喜欢在网上购物，而不仅仅限于去商场。
据加拿大统计局的介绍，在2005年将近700万成年人选择在网上购物，而该年的零售交易额达到了79亿元，这其中包括外出旅游时的机票预定、期刊杂志的定购以及购买一些数码产品等。但联邦机构认为，电子商务的仍旧只是人们日常开支的一小部分。
Grau指出，在现在一些加拿大人之所以仍旧排斥在网上购物主要是因为一些网络零售商并没有建立稳妥地零售渠道，提供更加便宜的选择。
虽然目前全球最大的零售商沃尔玛在美国建立了网上购物系统，但在加拿大他却并没有如此兴师动众。
零售分析师Ed Strapagiel 认为，加拿大人并不像美国人那样热衷于网上购物，这其中的一个主要原因在于加拿大人大多居住在市中心，像比较之下，美国人居住的则较为分散，因而大多数加拿大人则更愿意在节假日的时候外出购物。同时，他们有更多的购物中心，只要想去。
除此之外，直接邮寄广告不但对消费者来说，对一些零售商来说也是非常昂贵的，因而一般家庭和零售商们都不愿意如此消费。
但Grau预测，随着加拿大人网上购物热情的高涨，到2009年加拿大网上交易额将会猛增至160亿元，因而加拿大大的该市场也是非常有潜力可挖的。
“消费者在网上的购买力已经如此大，应该是那些零售商们大显身手的时候了。”
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Online retailers don’t click with Canadian shoppers, study finds
Last Updated: Friday, December 22, 2006 | 12:48 PM ET
CBC News
Canadian shoppers prefer to browse and research online but ultimately make the majority of their purchases at a bricks and mortar store, a new study suggests.
Jeffrey Grau, an analyst with the American research company eMarketer, says that while Canadians are exceptionally web savvy, they’ve been slow to embrace e-commerce.
“Canadian internet users are a bit of a conundrum,” Grau said in a release issued Thursday. “They are world leaders in broadband internet uptake, time spent online, and electronic banking and bill paying. They are also equal to or ahead of their U.S. counterparts in their propensity to purchase retail services online such as travel and event tickets.”
Grau noted the majority of Canadians use the internet primarily as a research tool to compare products, largely because many retailers have failed to construct reliable websites and offer cheap shipping options.
Retailers including Wal-Mart and Gap Inc. sell products through their websites to their customers in the U.S. but haven’t set up sites that sell to their Canadian consumers. But Grau predicts a marked shift ahead, projecting that Canadians will double their online spending by 2009 to $16 billion.
“Canadians spend so much time online,” said Grau, “it’s inevitable that they start spending money, too.”
Retail analyst Ed Strapagiel of Kubas Consultants says that Canadians may never take to e-commerce like American consumers. He says that since Canadians are more concentrated in urban centres than the U.S. population, we have more access to shopping malls.
“We’re pretty well served by the bricks and mortar segment, we have really great shopping centres. There’s no lack of opportunity to go get what you want,” he said.
He also says the direct mail system in Canada is expensive for both the consumer and the retailer.
“It’s economies of scale,” Kubas said. “[It’s] more expensive for the cataloguers to be out there, we’ve always had far fewer catalogues than south of the border. Our delivery costs, namely postal rates, are a lot higher both for mail and packages.”
Nearly seven million adults made purchases online in 2005, according to a Statistics Canada study. In total, they spent $7.9 billion on goods and services, including travel arrangements, reading material and electronics.
However, the federal agency noted that e-commerce represented a tiny fraction of the $762 billion spent in personal expenditures on goods and services.
