What Drives Online Consumer Decisions in the US and Canada

The survey was conducted by the Stony Brook University Center for Survey Research between December 23, 2014 and February 4, 2015.

Telephone interviews were conducted by landline with a randomly selected sample of Canadian and United States residents. Further information on the methodology is available in the Appendix to the report.

Key Findings:

• The four major reasons for shopping online are: convenience, wider product selection, price, and lack of a local retailer; this last point is more significant to Canadian consumers.

• The single most important factor to both Americans and Canadians in finalizing an online purchase is the cost of shipping. This factor is more important to Canadians than Americans. The reliability of the delivery carrier and the ease of return are the next most important factors selected by online shoppers.

• A majority of Canadian and American online shoppers are willing to sacrifice delivery time for lower cost—opting for shipping that took four days or longer. More than half said they very often or always adjust their shipping date to obtain lower-cost or free shipping.

• Almost half of Canadian consumers consider Canadian taxes and tariffs as a “very important” factor in their decision of whether or not to make an online purchase, and a large majority of Canadians expect the carrier to properly calculate all fees and process cross-border documents.

• Overall, a majority of online shoppers in both countries strongly agree that the postal service is an acceptable alternative to other types of carrier delivery services.

• Online holiday shopping increased in both the United States and Canada in 2014; however, there is room for growth in the online holiday shopping market. Roughly twothirds of shoppers in both countries purchased less than half of their holiday gifts online.

• More than half of Canadian consumers rate slow delivery and high shipping costs as important reasons for not purchasing holiday gifts online.

• More than a third of online shoppers in both countries had not returned an item because of the inconvenience of re-packaging it, and high return shipping costs had prevented 1 in 4 Canadian consumers from returning an item purchased online.