January 5 , 2010

Online shopping up seven per cent over last year
Four in ten Canadians shopped from home on Boxing Day

In an effort to avoid the headaches often associated with boxing-day shopping, four in ten Canadians (41%) purchased something online (up from 34% last year) according to a new Ipsos Reid poll conducted on behalf of PayPal. Among those that will, 5% will make all of their purchase online, while 42% will make some online, and 52% hardly any, perhaps just making one or two purchases.

If the lead-up to Christmas isn’t stressful enough, the thought of braving the boxing-day crowds was even worse for many Canadians. One in ten (8%) Canadians say they ‘always’ shop on December 26 to take advantage of the boxing-day deals and promotions. One in three (34%) ‘sometimes’ (34%) shop on boxing day, while other Canadians ‘rarely’ (33%) or ‘never’ (25%) do so.

Thinking about what bothers Canadians most about boxing-day shopping, seven in ten (68%) say they most hate the crowds and long lines, while one in ten (11%) most hate ‘finding that the item that you want is not carried or sold out’ (11%). Others hate trying to find a parking spot (4%), rude or unhelpful sales staff (3%), or some other aspect of boxing-day shopping (4%). Just one in ten (10%) doesn’t dislike anything.

These are some of the findings of an Ipsos Reid poll conducted between October 26 and 28, 2009, on behalf of PayPal. For this survey, a national sample of 1,025 adults from Ipsos' Canadian online panel was interviewed online.