While ecommerce and online shopping continue to grow year after year, it still has some wiggle room to grow further especially when you compare the number of consumers who will make an online purchase in the United States to Canada.
PayPal released some new data yesterday which was pretty surprising around here and states that 56% of online shoppers have 
abandoned their online shopping due to higher than expected shipping charges. The average cost of abandoned goods in Canadian shopping carts is C$156. One main factor that has slowed down the growth of ecommerce in particular is lack of consumer trust of retailers, consumers are still looking for reassurances that their information will not end up in the wrong hands and all of a sudden you “have bout a Royal palace in Zimbabwe.”
“Transparency is increasingly important to buyers,” said Darrell MacMullin, country manager for PayPal Canada. “One of the main reasons people click on the checkout button is to get information that is not provided by the online merchant such as shipping costs and other important fees such as cross-border duties and handling fees. To reduce cart abandonment, merchants should provide this information sooner in the checkout process.”
eCommerce Survey Results
The survey revealed a number of interesting points about the habits of Canadian who look to the internet to make purchases, some highlights of the survey include:
- Seventy-eight per cent of Canadians surveyed who abandoned a cart knew the site or had bought from it before.
- Fifty-two per cent said an ideal payment process would involve just one click, no matter where they were shopping.
- Forty-three per cent said it takes too long to fill out credit card information.
- Forty per cent of those who abandoned their shopping carts said the payment option they wanted to use was not available.
- Twenty-five per cent did eventually make the purchase online at the same retailer.
With 75% of those surveyed admitting to abandoning a shopping cart (compared to 62% in the US) Canadians are not serial cart abandoners as we only do it less than once a month. Four percent admitted to doing it on average more than five times a month.
The goals of the survey was to help identify reasons why people abandon virtual shopping carts after choosing items to purchase and proceeding to the checkout. The survey of 553 people in the US and 94 in Canada was conducted by comScore between May 12 and May 15 and May 12 and June 2, 2009, respectively. The US survey is accurate with in +/– 4.2 per cent 19 times in 20. The Canadian survey is accurate with in +/– 10.1 per cent 19 times in 20.
As part of their efforts to grow their market share Paypal has launched a new Express Checkout feature – the PayPal Instant Update API. The new feature will allow online merchants to integrate the PayPal’s technology earlier in the process including shipping options, insurance choices and tax totals.
Founder of Profectio of business sites which includes 
There are two themes here:
1. More and more APIs…
2. Customer demand for convenience/instant gratification online. No one wants to wait when they can click something else right now.