Canadian Online Retail Trends and Opportunities via Experian Hitwise, May 2010.

1. Canadian Online Retail Trends
and Opportunities
dO t iti
May
M 2010
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2. Introduction
A recent Statistics Canada report revealed that window shopping has become one of
the most popular activities online, with 65% of Canadians reporting that they window
shop online at home up 8% since 2007 Half of Canadians also report buying goods or
home, 2007.
services online, up 11% from 2007.*
This increased appetite to shop
and browse online is reflected in
Hitwise data which shows an 8%
data,
year over year gain in April 2010
in the share of Canadian internet
visits going to Shopping and
Classifieds websites.
The chart on this slide illustrates
the Shopping and Classifieds
Industry’s growth, as well as the
natural seasonal fluctuations in
visits to the category, in particular
in the lead up to the holiday
shopping season.
* http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/100510/t100510a2-eng.htm).
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3. Canadian Retail Brands Falling Behind
Of the top 200 Shopping and Classifieds websites in April 2010, nearly one quarter (48)
were websites for Canadian companies. 83 websites were Canadian specific URLs (i.e.
ebay.ca, amazon.ca)
ebay ca amazon ca) for international brands The remainder were international websites
brands. websites,
typically US.
The following table lists the top ranked Canadian brands among Shopping and Classifieds
websites in April 2010, based on share of Canadian Internet visits.
► Visits to websites of Canadian retail
brands grew 6% year over year in April.
This gain is slightly lower than the
increase to the Shopping and Classifieds
category as a whole indicating that
whole,
Canadian retail brands are at risk of
falling behind international, in particular
US, competitors in the Canadian market.
► For the top10 Canadian Retail Brands
Brands,
the fastest growing websites year over
year were Air Miles Shop (+187%),
Canadian Tire (+28%) and Rona (+22%).
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4. Top Retail Categories in Canada
The most popular retail industries online in Canada are Classifieds, Rewards and
Directories, Auctions, Department Stores, and House and Garden. The table on this
slide lists the top 10 (among 21) industries
industries.
The retail industries that have shown the strongest gains in share of Canadian
internet visits over the past year are Classifieds (+25%), House and Garden (+26%),
Sport and Fitness (+26%), and Flowers and Gifts (+62%). Among the top 10
industries listed below Classifieds, Rewards and Directories House and Garden
below, Classifieds Directories, Garden,
and Apparel and Accessories have seen strong positive gains.
The Rewards and Directories Industry has seen
13% growth y
g year over yyear and has overtaken
Auctions as the #2 retail industry. This industry is
made up of comparison shopping sites such as
NexTag, Gifts.com and Shopzilla. The category is
dominated by US brands, most of which do not
carry Canadian pricing; this highlights an
important opportunity for the Canadian
marketplace.
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5. Comparison Shopping Growth and Opportunity
With demand for comparison shopping increasing among Canadians, the market is ripe
for a comparison shopping brand to meet the needs of Canadians by offering Canadian
prices and links to Canadian websites.
Of particular importance to comparison shoppers are flyers. Flyers have traditionally
been mailed to households to promote sales; as consumers move online, searches for
flyers have become one of the main engines of growth for Rewards and Directories
websites. The share of searches for ‘flyers’ was up 13% year over year in the twelve
flyers
weeks to May 22, 2010. Similarly, the share of searches for ‘circulaire’ (the French
language equivalent) was up 7% .
The following tables show the top search terms in the twelve weeks ending May 22,
2010, that included the words “flyer” and “circulaire”.
flyer circulaire .
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6. Home Improvement Booming in Canada
House and Garden websites enjoyed 26% growth in share of visits year over year to
April 2010, becoming the 5th largest retail industry in Canada (up from 7th in April
2009). Among the fastest growing websites for Canadian brands (see slide #3) were
Canadian Tire and Rona, both of which rank in the top 10 House and Garden
websites.
Home improvement searches have been
soaring in recent weeks. The chart on
this slide shows the performance of a
Hitwise Search Term Portfolio comprised
of non-navigational home improvement
search terms. The share of Home
Improvement searches increased 89%
I t h i d
year over year in the twelve weeks
ending May 22, 2010.
Canadians appear to be investing in their
homes thi spring. T H
h this i Top Home
Improvement search terms included
“kitchen cabinets”, “wallpaper”, “solar
panels”, “furniture stores” and “patio
furniture
furniture”.
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7. Website Profile: Canadian Tire
One of the main beneficiaries of the increased interest in home improvement was
Canadian Tire. The site’s recent growth (see Slide #3 and #6) can be attributed to an
increase in searches for the brand and successful search engine marketing
marketing.
In April 2010, Canadian Tire (www.canadiantire.com) received 45% of upstream visits
from Search Engines, primarily from Google Canada (accounting for 35% of visits). The
popular Canadian Tire Flyer website was the #2 source of visits, followed by Facebook;
each accounted for 3% of visits
visits.
As with most brands, the top search terms sending visits to the Canadian Tire website
were variations of its brand name (eg. ‘Canadian Tire’, ‘Canadian Tire flyer’ and
‘Canadian Tire store locator’). As the site’s share of visits has increased, so too has the
share of searches f the brand’s name.
h f h for th b d’
Canadian Tire’s growth online might be also be attributed to successful search engine
marketing. The site was one of the top two recipients of traffic for the top five product
related search terms sending visits to the site in the twelve weeks to May 22, 2010.
Among th t 100 search terms sending visits to the site, 32 were searches f
A the top ht di i it t th it h for
products the company sells (eg. ‘patio furniture’, ‘gps Garmin’ ‘MasterCraft tools’).
Canadian Tire won 25% of all clicks for searches for ‘gps Garmin’ and 58% of all clicks
for ‘MasterCraft tools’ searches.
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8. Key Takeaways
Canadians’ appetite for window shopping and buying goods online is growing with an 8%
year over year increase in April 2010 in the share of Canadian internet visits going to
Shopping and Classifieds websites (slide 2)
websites.
One quarter of the leading Shopping and Classifieds websites in April were for Canadian
brands. These retailers are at risk of falling behind international (in particular US)
competitors as growth to this sub-set of retailers increases more slowly than average for
the industry. (slide 3)
The most popular retail industries online in Canada are Classifieds, Rewards and
Directories, Auctions, Department Stores, and House and Garden. The retail industries
that have shown the strongest gains in share of Canadian internet visits over the past year
are Classifieds (+25%), House and Garden (+26%), Sport and Fitness (+26%), and
Flowers and Gifts (+62%) (slide 4)
(+62%).
Interest in comparison shopping is on the rise in Canada. The Rewards and Directories
industry has seen 13% growth year over year and has overtaken Auctions as the #2 retail
industry. As the industry is currently dominated by US players, an opportunity exists for
comparison shopping websites offering Canadian p
p pp g g prices and web links. ( (Slide 4 & 5)
)
Home improvement is booming this spring in Canada with non-navigational Home
Improvement searches increasing 89% year over year in the twelve weeks to May 22,
2010. Among the fastest growing Canadian retail websites were Canadian Tire and Rona,
both of which fall within the top 10 House and Garden websites. (slide 6)
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9. Next Steps
Contact your Experian Hitwise Account Manager for more information on any of the
insights in this report.
Use Hitwise Search Data to Monitor Demand for Products in Your Category:
Internet search data can be a timely source of insight into demand for products and
services, such as furniture or clothing. Comparisons can be drawn to demand for your
own products to provide an external benchmark of success
Find out what your target audience is doing online: Hitwise Custom Mini Panels are
based on a custom set of people from the Hitwise 10M sample that have visited a
specific set of websites, searched on a specific group of search terms, and/or fall within
a specific demographic or psychographic group Hitwise then identifies all sites
group.
this mini-panel or target group visited and all terms they searched on to provide
analysis.
For more information contact your Account Manager or support@hitwise com
information, support@hitwise.com.
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10. More Information
For further updates on any of the topic covered in this report, please contact:
Chris Morgan at chris.morgan@hitwise.com or via our website: http://www.hitwise.com/us/contact-us/
About Experian Hitwise
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