Andrew Sloss of Ebay Canada gave a compelling and insightful presentation recently at a conference I attended. While the whole presentation was of interest, one key point really stood out to me.

According to Andrew, Ebay Canada processed some $1Billion in transactions last year. A pretty hefty number. However, 80% of those sales were Canadians buying from US Sellers. That is a huge number. Now admittedly the Canadian/US dollar played apart in that but 80% still gives me the impression that Canadians are just not seeing the opportunity to sell online.

Another stat that proves this case, in 2006 only 15% of Canadian businesses had even a portion of their inventory available online. That is pretty pathetic in all honesty. Especially when you consider my previous posts about the Canadian Landscape and how users research on line and then buy off line. If consumers can’t find your products online, even just to research, you are potentially losing out on significant additional in-store traffic and revenues.