Cyber Monday shopping

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Shoppers were pointing and clicking at a pretty good pace Monday. This was ‘Cyber Monday’, and Canadian retailers are poised to rake in record sales this year. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, cyber Monday is is basically black Friday on the web. Elise Copps has a look at the trend towards online shopping for the holidays and year round.

The click of a mouse isnt quite as satisfying as the ring of a cash register

But that hasn’t stopped shoppers from shelling out this cyber Monday.

Mandeep Malik is a Marketing Professor at the DeGroote School of Business: “Theres a buzz around this day and they open up their wallets and spend money.”

For the book business, a sector that has seen a major transition to online sales in the past five years, cyber Monday accounts for a significant portion of annual revenue.

Kirsten Chapman is Vice-President of Digital for Indigo: “Last year we had our biggest online sales day in history. Monday weère set to trump that.”

In recent years, Canada has seen a huge jump in online buying. In 2012 Canadians spent nearly 19 billion dollars online. Up 24 per cent from 2010.

That number doesnt include orders that are shipped to post office boxes across the border.

Mandeep: “My suspicion is that Canadians are annually spending in the ballpark of 30 to 35 billion dollars on online purchasing.”

Young consumers especially, are doing a significant portion of their shopping online.

“Probably more than half of my shopping.”

“50 per cent probably.”

“Probably like 40 percent.”

Buying everything from clothes, to gifts to books, they say convenience- and avoiding christmas shopping chaos- make online shopping the obvious choice.

Kirsten Chapman: “Canadians have caught on to this now and they know that this is the time, these are the door crashers and this is the time to do your holiday shopping.”

And analysts agree: deloitte consulting firm predicts canadians will spend almost 20 per cent of their holiday budget online. Which is likely to make 20-13 another record year for e-commerce.

Numbers show shoppers aren’t just using their computers to shop online. More and more people are making purchases with their smartphones and tablets. Meaning retailer must constantly evolve their marketing strategies to keep up with the way people want to shop.