Online shopping is becoming increasingly popular over the Christmas season, and P.E.I. is no exception to that upward trend.
Perhaps no Island company understands the value of e-commerce more than the Charlottetown-based ice cream shop COWS.
Although ice cream is its calling card, the business may be just as famous for its line of cow-themed T-shirts, which begin to fly off the online racks as the holidays approach.
"We do have a fair number of people who shop online through the whole year, but it does increase significantly during this time of the year," said Rowan Caseley, COWS' general manager of operations, who estimated that 15 to 20 per cent of the company's sales are made online as opposed to storefront visits.
"There's more and more people getting involved in (online shopping) now, but it is a market that has a lot more opportunity than a lot of us here realized. It's an untapped market that we need to take more advantage of."
According to a 2011 holiday spending outlook published by BMO, 43 per cent of women are shopping online this holiday season, up from 34 per cent last year. The bank also found 49 per cent of men surveyed will shop on the web this year.
Advances in technologies like wireless Internet, smart phones and e-readers have helped spur the growth, noted BMO's vice president Su McVey.
Dr. Susan Graham, a marketing professor at UPEI's School of Business, said it's a sure bet that more Islanders will start to embrace that trend.
"This is just the tip of the iceberg - we're going to see online shopping and e-commerce continue to grow for the foreseeable future," she said. "The younger people - who have grown up with this kind of technology, and for whom this is absolutely normal - as they move into stages of their lives where they have more disposable income and can make more purchases, it's only going to grow more and more."
But while more Island consumers may be making purchases over the Internet, Graham said research suggests that local retailers aren't embracing online sales as quickly as their counterparts across the country.
"Businesses who want to remain in business will have to jump on this bandwagon," she added. "If not, customers now can now literally shop from everywhere in the world...so (businesses) either have to step up, or risk losing out."
COWS, meanwhile, may be ahead of that curve when it comes to web sales. The company also sells Anne of Green Gables Chocolates and Raspberry Point oysters through www.cows.ca.
What started as a cost-saving measure in 2008 when catalog mail outs became too expensive, online retail has become an ever-increasing focus of COWS' marketing.
"You may get it (the catalog) into a household but they're only going to see it when it comes in, then maybe throw it on a table and cover it up with something else and never see it again for a year," said Caseley. "This way (online) it's always there."
sbrun@journalpioneer.com
BMO's 2011 Holiday Spending Outlook by the numbers:
80 per cent of those surveyed say female head of household will do the majority of holiday shopping this year87 per cent of Atlantic Canadian married couples polled say women will do shopping (compared to 79 per cent in Ontario and 72 per cent in Quebec)43 per cent of women will shop online (up from 34 per cent in 2010)49 per cent of men will shop online89 per cent of those polled will use a credit card to shop online@$:BMO's survey was conducted online between Oct. 17 and 20, with a sample of 1,508 Canadians. The survey's margin of error is plus or minus 2.5 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
