Three-quarters of Canadians research purchases online, but only 41% of small businesses have an online presence
OTTAWA, March 18, 2014 /CNW/ -Canadian small businesses, only 41.1 per cent of which have a website, may bemissing lucrative opportunities as Canadians come to rely on the Internet to help them make buying decisions, according to the 2014 Factbook from the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (www.CIRA.ca), the organization that manages the .CA domain.
- 87 per cent of Internet users consider it "somewhat important," or "very important" for Canadians to have .CA.
- Half of Canadians who expressed a preference also said they prefer .CA over .COM for business use, and for online activities that require the disclosure of personal information such as shopping or banking.
- 74 per cent of Canadians reported that they search online, and compare goods and services, before committing to a purchase.
- Only 45.5 per cent of Canadian businesses are online. This divide is particularly evident among small businesses, with only 41.1 per cent having a website, versus 91.8 per cent of large enterprises.
- Two out of every three dollars Canadians spend online go south of the border, and we lag the U.S. and the U.K. in terms of the percentage of our retail economy that is online (three per cent, versus seven and 23 per cent, respectively).
Other interesting highlights of the Factbook include:
- Only 62 per cent of Canadians in the lowest income quartile have Internet access, compared with 95 per cent of Canadians in the highest income quartile.
- The average Canadian visited 3,731 web pages per month last year, the highest in the world. We also ranked a close second behind the U.S. for the average number of hours spent online per user.
continue reading the report:
http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/can...140000924.html
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