Canadians Increasingly Use E-Commerce for Holiday Shopping

TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - December 04, 2014) - Canadians are increasingly using e-commerce to help them avoid the hustle and bustle of crowds during the holidays. In a new survey conducted by Ipsos Reid on behalf of Visa Canada, 61 per cent of Canadians said they planned to purchase at least one gift online as part of their holiday shopping, with 40 per cent planning to do more shopping online than previous years.

More and more, Canadians are choosing the convenience of online shopping; however the checkout process does not always match the ease of the digital showroom. In fact, according to the Ipsos survey 40 per cent of Canadians agreed they would do more holiday shopping online if the payment process were simpler. And, a recent comScore study showed 47 per cent of online shoppers abandoned a purchase prior to completing payment within the past three months¹. 

To help solve for this, Visa launched Visa Checkout, an online payment service that lets consumers make online purchases more quickly and easily, whether using a computer, tablet, or mobile device, without having to continually re-enter payment and billing information. Once enrolled, shoppers simply enter their username and password to securely checkout without ever having to leave the merchant's website.

"Supporting continued e-commerce growth means reducing friction from the checkout. Retailers offering Visa Checkout benefit from a simplified digital purchase process with an intuitive consumer experience," said Brian Weiner, Vice President, Product and Strategy, Visa Canada.

Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, WestJet, Kobo, 1-800-Flowers.com, Sears Canada, and London Drugs recently joined Cineplex Entertainment, Beyond the Rack, ClearlyContacts.ca, World Vision, lululemon athletica, Staples Canada, Ticketmaster, United Airlines, Newegg.ca and TigerDirect.com in offering Visa Checkout in Canada, with Running Room, Simons, and American Apparel coming soon. Canada's largest payments processor Moneris Solutions will also help provide consumers with more places to shop by adding Visa Checkout to its online commerce platform, making it easy for businesses to accept the service.

Canadian consumers can sign up for Visa Checkout now with any major credit, prepaid or Visa Debit card at visacheckout.ca or through participating payments card issuers and merchants.

About the Ipsos Reid Survey

These are the results of an Ipsos Reid poll of 1,006 Canadian adults conducted between November 20th to 25th, 2014 on behalf of Visa Canada. The poll is accurate to within +/- 3.5 percentage points had all Canadians adults been surveyed.

About Visa

Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) is a global payments technology company that connects consumers, businesses, financial institutions, and governments in more than 200 countries and territories to fast, secure and reliable electronic payments. We operate one of the world's most advanced processing networks -- VisaNet -- that is capable of handling more than 56,000 transaction messages a second, with fraud protection for consumers and assured payment for merchants. Visa is not a bank and does not issue cards, extend credit or set rates and fees for consumers. Visa's innovations, however, enable its financial institution customers to offer consumers more choices: pay now with debit, pay ahead of time with prepaid or pay later with credit products. For more information, visit corporate.visa.com and @VisaNewsCA.

¹Source: Visa Canada Digital Commerce Index, Q1 2014, comScore