The US accounts for the majority of North America’s online retail sales, being around 15 times larger than Canada in terms of B2C ecommerce market size in 2017. Retailers in North America count on shopping via virtual assistants and chatbots, click and collect, and mobile shopping to drive continued growth of B2C ecommerce market.
Online sales surpasses total retail sales in both major economies, with Amazon.com capturing nearly a third of online sales in the US, forcing traditional retailers to look to ecommerce for future growth. Walmart has recently invested in online marketplace offerings and improvement of delivery options.
Online marketplace eBay has allowed shoppers to upload a photo from a smartphone to shop for similar items. The yStats.com report suggest that innovations such as voice enabled shopping via Alexa and the growth of Prime Membership will permit Amazon to expand its lead in B2C ecommerce.
Canadian online retail sales are also dominated by Amazon, with cross-border shopping from the US as well as through Amazon.ca characterizing ecommerce in Canada. The yStats.com report shows that about half of shoppers in Canada visit an Amazon web page at least once a month, and likewise, more than half of Canadian shoppers make purchases cross-border.
However, traditional retailers in Canada are also increasing their online offerings, encouraging behaviors such as seeing a product in-store before online purchase, or research online before purchase in-store.
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