Fresh details have been released by eBay Canada about what Canadians were buying online yesterday. Somewhat interestingly, the No.1 item wasn’t a game console, laptop or TV.
It was gift cards, predominantly for sporting goods and – wait for it – gasoline.
Rounding out the most in-demand items on eBay on Monday were the usual suspects: gaming systems, digital cameras, flatscreen TVs and laptops, in that order, eBay said.
The site is the second-biggest e-commerce retailer in Canada, second only to rival Amazon.ca, making eBay a decent proxy for the general preferences of Cyber Monday shoppers here.
There aren’t firm numbers available yet on how much Canadians spent online yesterday, but advance polling suggests it will be on par with what was spent last year.
Last week, pollsters at Pollara said in a survey commissioned by the Bank of Montreal that respondents planned to spend an average of $229, with 42 per cent of those surveyed committed to making a purchase.
Forecasts vs. reality
A picture of how the forecast (and others like it) stacks up against reality will likely come into focus later this week or early next, when numbers from payment processors like Moneris Solutions as well as B.C.-based researcher DIG360 Consulting Ltd. should become available.
Some experts such as David Ian Gray, principal at DIG360 suggest Cyber Monday may be headed toward irrelevance in the eyes of the average shopper as outlets extend Black Friday deals through online storefronts and draw out those deals over longer time frames.
“From a consumer perspective, Cyber Monday is fast becoming meaningless as retailers run Black Friday promotions on their websites and as Black Friday becomes a multiday event,” he said.
Here’s a regional snapshot of shopping intentions ahead of yesterday:
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