Retail e-commerce revenue in Canada 2017-2028

In 2023, retail e-commerce in Canada generated over 52 billion U.S. dollars in revenues. According to estimates, this figure is projected to increase to 81 billion U.S. dollars by 2028.

Successful e-commerce segments in Canada

Canada's booming e-commerce sector owes more than half of its retail sales to two particularly lucrative segments: fashion and electronics, which captured 27 and 25 percent of all e-commerce retail sales in Canada in 2022, respectively. With nearly ten billion U.S. dollars in e-commerce net sales, Amazon was the leading online store in Canada in 2021, outperforming competitors like Walmart and Costco by an impressive margin. Ranking second, walmart.ca generated around 3.77 billion U.S. dollars in e-commerce net sales that year.

Fashion leads the way

Fashion proved to be a successful e-commerce segment in many countries around the world, and Canada was no exception, as the most popular online stores in the fashion segment raked in millions of dollars in e-commerce net sales, led by gapcanada.ca with 565 million U.S. dollars in 2021. Like many other countries in the world, Canada's fashion e-commerce sector was also disrupted by a Chinese newcomer that catapulted itself to the centerstage of the fast fashion world: Shein was the most downloaded fashion and beauty shopping app in Canada in June 2022, with its 246,000 monthly downloads overshadowing those of competitors. In comparison, long-established fast fashion titan Zara only amassed 57,000 downloads that same month.