What, and from where?
Canadians tend to spend less online when compared to the average global shopper. Fashion is no exception to this case, with only 17 percent of Canadian shoppers expecting to shop online for fashion products in comparison to the 28 percent global average. This tendency to shop less online can be identified in most product categories besides fashion and may also point to a strong preference for big-name generalist platforms among consumers. Within the fashion segment, Gap Canada’s site is the highest grossing online store by net sales. The Gap Company, an established player in the United States, generated over half a billion U.S. dollars from its Canadian operations in 2021. In turn, in the mobile sphere, SHEIN was the most downloaded fashion and beauty shopping app.But what are Canadians buying, exactly? If we divide fashion into three categories – apparel, footwear, and accessories – the apparel segment generated the most revenue in 2021, accounting for almost nine of the 14 billion U.S. dollars total sales. Accessories came next, followed by shoes. Forecasts indicate that clothing purchases will continue to make up the bulk of fashion products that Canadians buy online.
The average online fashion shopper
There are some 15 million Canadian users expected to engage in the fashion e-commerce market in 2022, and this figure will only grow, nearing 20 million by 2025. The majority of online fashion shoppers – over 50 percent – were women, while adults from 25 to 34 years old were the age group making up the largest share of shoppers who bought their apparel on the web.If we specifically look at Canadians who shopped for apparel with their mobile devices, women also make up over half of m-commerce apparel shoppers, and younger adults did more mobile shopping than older generations. When it comes to devices, Android phones were the preferred choice for more than eight in ten mobile clothing shoppers in 2022.
