Worried,American,Retailers,Loo ecommerce Worried American Retailers Look To Canada For Exciting New R

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With the faltering US economy and the resulting dropin consumer spending, many American based online merchants are nowscrambling to find new markets to replace income lost as Americans curbtheir online personal spending. These Web based businesses are lookingfor new markets that have a "wired" Internet savvy population, with aneconomy in relatively better shape than the United States and one witha fairly close proximity to the US to keep fuel dependent shippingcosts low.This search for the new world in Internet markets is arelatively new one so where would you start? Well, overwhelminglyonline merchants are looking north to Canada for new shoppers hungryfor the wide selection and competitive pricing for which US onlinemerchants have become famous.Why Canada?TheseInternet merchants don't have very far to look to find a barely tappedmarket right on their northern border. Thanks in part to Governmentfunded projects, Canada is one of the most widely Internet connectednations on the planet. The Canadian economy, for the most part, has notbeen as effected by the recent sub-prime fiasco and Wall Streetcorporate bail-outs that have dried-up consumer spending in the UnitedStates. Canadians are online and spending. The large majority ofCanada's population lives within a few hundred miles of the US-Canadaborder. Toronto (Canada's largest city) is only 480 miles from New YorkCity!Some Canadian Facts:Population of Canada: 33,000,000Language: English (primarily) and FrenchPolitical System: Stable Parliamentary DemocracyCurrency: Canadian Dollar (currently roughly at par with the US dollar)According to Statistics Canada recent data:64.2% of all households had internet accessTotal Canadian electronic commerce spending per year is C$3,034,000,000Total online spending in Canada per year is C$2,093,000,000Total online spending in all other countries per year is C$941,000,000Average household online expenditures per year is C$956Average online expenditure per order is C$144 Lookat these facts. Canadian do twice as much online shopping inside ofCanada then they do for all other countries combined! Why is this sowhen they are so close to the United States? Simply stated, it isignorance and apathy on the part of American online merchants.Typically merchants either consider Canada a fifty-first state or acompletely foreign country. This is no way to treat a customer who istrying to buy what you sell. There are obviously hidden hurdles thatkeep Canadians online shoppers out of American online stores.Hurdles to Canadian cross border shoppingFourthings keep Canadians nervous about shopping online in American onlinestores: Shipping fees, brokerage fees, foreign credit cards and duty.Shipping and shipping fees:As stated earlier, it is closer to ship an item from New York toToronto then it is to ship the same item from New York City to Dallas!Why would a merchant in New York offer free shipping to a customer inDallas but not to the a client in Toronto? Canadians shopping onlineare frustrated because they run into this problem all the time. Manymerchants flatly refuse to ship to Canada for a variety of weak andpoorly thought-out reasons...Brokerage fees: This isthe hidden cost that Canadians have come to fear. Many poor shoppershave had online purchases from the US arrive at their doors to discoverthat the taxes and brokerage fees were twice the price of the purchase!There are shipping methods that can minimize these brokerage fee butmany American merchants seem unwilling to adapt their shipping methodsto attract new customers.Foreign credit cards: Someonline Merchants are rightfully nervous when dealing with credit cardsfrom foreign countries. Many of these merchants make it almostimpossible for a customer with a Canadian credit card to complete thecheckout process. Other merchant require foreign card holders tocomplete the checkout using PayPal - as if PayPal is impervious tofraud.Duty: Under the North American Free TradeAgreement (NAFTA), any merchandise that is manufactured in Canada, theUnited States or Mexico can be shipped amongst these three countriesduty-free. If a product was made in a non-NAFTA country, the endconsumer must pay the import duty on that product. Many Canadian onlineshoppers have seen duty charges inflate the final price of an item.Again this is a hidden fee that the consumer usually only sees whenthey receive the shippment.So what can American merchants do for Canadian online shoppers?"Thefirst thing American merchants can do for Canadian shoppers is to justbe aware of the problem that they (Canadians) face in onlinecross-border shopping. " says David Cameron,"Most American merchants are well meaning but they just don't realizethe problems that Canadians face when they try to shop from AmericanWebsites. We try to work with American online merchants to educate themabout what Canadians need to have the confidence to complete the orderprocess. This usually includes Canadian specific landing pages, changesto shipping methods, coupons to compensate for costs and the additionof a Canadian-only shopping cart. Some merchants are willing to makethe small changes - some are not. In time they will have to come aroundor lose market share to merchants that take the Canadian marketseriously. Our Best Practices for American Merchants page has seen andramatic increase in traffic in the past few months."Many of thelarger companies like Amazon, Sony, HomeDepot and Apple are alreadyonboard. They have led the way and taken the extra steps of setting upCanadian online stores and distribution centers to capture the alreadyripe Canadian market. Others like Brookstone, Cooking.com and Sephorause a service by Canada Post called Border Free. With this serviceCanadian shoppers see exactly what all the various fees amount to in aspecial Canadian check out area. This is very reassuring to theCanadian consumer as it removes any questions about the final cost andallows for easier online bargain hunting."Canadians want to shoponline and they want to shop in American stores", says David Cameron,"They're just frustrated with being treated like second class citizensby American merchants and then having to pay through the nose for theright to give them their business."The Canadian online shoppingmarket is still in it's infancy but with the decline in the Americaneconomy it is only a matter of time until we see the trickle of largeonline merchants doing business in Canada turn into an unstoppablestream. Most of the changes that merchants need to implement will alsobenefit customers from countries other than Canada. The Canadian onlineshopping market is an excellent (and safe) opportunity for Americanonline merchants to expand their reach and perhaps in the future moveon to other markets further a field. Article Tags: American Online Merchants, Online Merchants, United States, Online Shopping, American Online, Credit Cards, Shipping Methods, American Merchants, Canadian Online