_This article is by Guest Contributor Jennifer Evans._
I met recently with an individual responsible for development at one of Canada’s largest and most successful fundraisers, and we were discussing the fact that the ‘ten percent’ rule when it comes to projecting Canadian online activity using the US as a benchmark just doesn’t apply to e-commerce.
The theory goes that because Canada’s population is about 10% of the US population, then we can apply the same ratio to prospective activity results. Canadian marketers “frequently”:http://www.primezone.com/newsroom/news.html?d=82316 use this as a metric when planning or budgeting. But it’s time to put that ratio to bed, at least when it comes to e-commerce. Political parties in Canada don’t raise anywhere close to 10% of what the major US parties do online. Canadian charities don’t raise 10% of what is donated online in the US. And when it comes to selling online, forget about it. eMarketer announced last week its “September report”:http://www.emarketer.com/Report.aspx?ecom_canada_sep05 is the latest state of the Canadian ecommerce nation study, and this should really be the death knell on the 10% rule. Sure, there’s a 20% projected increase in buying. But that’s coming from a low starting point, the percentage of people who are online who buy is increasing only fractionally, and most of the activity is going to US companies.