What Are Your Canadian Selling Demographics?

[teenytrinkets]

Lately, I've noticed the majority of my Canadian buyers are from Ontario. I provide free shipping, and of course, accept lower offers from Americans on the items I can't ship lettermail. I'm in BC, so the package rate is minimum $19. It's eating up my profits, since 60% of my buyers are Canadian.

I realize that ON has a population about 3x the size of BC, but I'm baffled that half of my Canadian sales are from Ontario residents ( and about 90% are in the GTA). About a quarter of my sales are Quebec residents, and about a sixth are Albertans. Do people in my home province of BC just have no money to spend???

Anyway, I'm curious about your Canadian sales stats to see if your buyer's are from the same provinces mine are from:

Ontario - 50%
Quebec - 25%
AB - 15%
BC - 4%
MB - 3%
SK - 2%
Other- 1%

It's times like this I wish I lived in Ontario!!!

[ypdc_dennis]

Looking at my last year of sales on ebay:

32% Canada

29% USA

18% UK

7% Germany

5% Australia

followed by Japan and 8 other European countries.

Domestic shipping (not just ebay, for my sales from all venues):

Ontario: 45%

Quebec: 19%

British Columbia: 12%

Alberta: 12%

SK & MB: 8%

NB, NS & NL: 5%

....

You should look into eBay's shipping rate tables.

One of the options is to have a shipping surcharge for different regions of Canada.

https://pages.ebay.ca/seller-centre/shipping-returns/shipping-rate-tables.html

-..-

[recped]

My Canadian sales reflect the population distribution of this chart fairly closely.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_provinces_and_territories_by_population

[teenytrinkets]

This graph is not exactly accurate.

Ontario population- 14.57 million
Quebec population - 8.485 million
BC population- 5.071 million
AB population-4.85 million

Technically BC should be in the 5-10 million range.

I have over 3x the Alberta vs BC sales, despite the similar populations. I have 10x the ON vs BC sales, despite ON only having less than 3x the population.

I guess I'm looking to see if anyone else has such low BC sales ...

[reallynicestamps]

Sometimes it depends on the product.

I've had a lot of sales to Newfoundland and Labrador over the past couple of years, but I've also been breaking up a couple of Newfoundland cover collections.

In the same way, my India items tend to go to Britain or India.

A lot of Easterners retire here to BC, especially Vancouver Island, but they have downsized and are no longer collecting.  If you ever want to buy antiques, the various Victoria auctions and shops have amazing prices for smalls and for brown goods.

[mrdutch1001]

Looking at the fact I don't sell much on eBay anymore, and don't have a lot of sales from 2019, it can be determined though, that 74% of my sales were to the USA , one International sale and the rest Canada. Of the Canadian buyers, 60% Ontario, 20% B.C, 20% Maritimes.

[marnotom!]

@reallynicestamps makes a good point that touches on age demographics.  According to Stats Can, in 2012 British Columbia's median age was about five years higher than that of Alberta's.  It was also higher than Ontario's but about on a par with Quebec's.  

I'm not trying to perpetuate a stereotype of seniors being less internet-savvy than them younger folk, but it could be that British Columbia has a higher proportion of "less wired" inhabitants than Alberta, or at least a higher proportion of less eCommerce-savvy individuals, for whatever reason.

[femmefan1946]

On that "less internet-savvy", while I am certainly a technodolt, I have been working with computers since 1995, and we computerized our business around 1990.
DH had an online auction before there was eBay, mostly on apanet(?).  He complains that he should have gone into the website business with it instead of sticking with stamps.

If you are under 70 and were a white or pink collar worker, you have been using desktop computers since the turn of the millennium. Remember Y2K? That's what that was all about. Even then about 36% of homes were online.

My sisters, age 82 and 83, both used computers in their secretarial work before retiring and one is still active online, between golf and tapdance classes.

And Bill Gates is 64.

[marnotom!]

---

@femmefan1946 wrote:

On that "less internet-savvy", while I am certainly a technodolt, I have been working with computers since 1995, and we computerized our business around 1990.
DH had an online auction before there was eBay, mostly on apanet(?).  He complains that he should have gone into the website business with it instead of sticking with stamps.

If you are under 70 and were a white or pink collar worker, you have been using desktop computers since the turn of the millennium. Remember Y2K? That's what that was all about. Even then about 36% of homes were online.

My sisters, age 82 and 83, both used computers in their secretarial work before retiring and one is still active online, between golf and tapdance classes.

And Bill Gates is 64.

---

No quibbles with that.  But let's not discount the experiences of others which may be quite different from our own.  When I worked in Victoria, the brick and mortar retailer I worked at successfully catered to seniors, and a good proportion of those were internet-savvy, but I suspect that they made up a fairly small proportion of the entire senior population of the CRD.

And thanks to Victoria's pricey real estate, many seniors are now seeking out other suitable retirement havens.

Is there any sort of study out there that analyzes the professional background of British Columbia's retirees as well as where they've chosen to live?

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

Hey, do you know if Golden Seniors get a 10% discount first Tuesday of every month financed by eBay? Hmmm maybe a concept whose time has come?  

-Lotz

[femmefan1946]

EBay's customer base does skew older than that of AZ or some other sites.

That could be a good promotion-- although how would you prove the customer's age?

Or would you even bother?

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

The senior would need 12 pieces of verified ID and a signed affidavit from a lawyer to qualify.  And it would only be applicable to categories where seniors would never shop. I guess it would be a bit mean if the fine print was in a really tiny indistinguishable font?? <Tongue in cheek> 

-Lotz

[pjcdn2005]

Which other online sites have senior discounts?  I’m not aware of any.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

The post was, as noted, tongue in cheek.

It appears there are few that could be accessed online in the attached list. Rules and regulations/a discount card may be required to qualify. The Bay, Greyhound, Via, Hotels, M & M's, Shopper's DM for example. 

https://maplemoney.com/senior-discounts-canada/

-Lotz

[travis7s]

I'm based out of SK and I'd say 60% of the sales go to Quebec for some reason.