One of the most noticeable changes in the retail sector during the COVID-19 pandemic was how businesses – whether big or small – embraced e-commerce.
Jim Harris, a Toronto-based author and consultant who looks at everything from technology trends to disruptive innovation, was in Saskatchewan last week speaking with local business groups.
Harris suggests we saw 10 years’ worth of e-commerce growth in the two years of COVID-19 disruption.
Statistics Canada this week echoed that adoption argument.
The value of e-commerce transactions rose 30 per cent from 2019 to 2021 to nearly $400 billion. That is four times the volume of business being done through this portal a decade earlier.
Surprisingly, it was business-to-business players who were conducting the most business online. Manufacturers accounted for nearly a quarter of all the sales revenues.
Retailing actually was the smallest component at less than 10 per cent of all the e-commerce volume, but it was transformative for retail with growth of 60 per cent through the pandemic.
