Consumption on Quebec merchants' websites or mobile applications is still marginal in Quebec, but a recent survey shows that it is growing.

The Laval University Academy of Digital Transformation survey released Wednesday indicates that 26 per cent of Quebec cyber-consumers bought online in 2022 on websites or mobile applications of Quebec merchants, an increase of 7 percentage points compared to the previous year.

The survey adds that 60 per cent of online consumers said they found it easy to identify Quebec products online, an increase of 10 percentage points in one year.

Around seven per cent of adult Quebecers have made purchases on the Blue Basket website since the transactional component was added in October 2022.

During this rise of the Blue Basket (Panier Bleu), e-purchases on Amazon's websites or mobile apps were down from 48 per cent in 2021 to 46 per cent last year. A decrease was also observed during the same period among Canadian merchants, from 18 to 16 per cent, as well as among foreign merchants, from 15 to 12 per cent.

Purchases from other Quebec merchants remained stable at 19 per cent.

Although purchases made on Amazon's website or mobile application declined by two per cent, the Laval University survey noted that membership in the Amazon Prime program increased by 7 percentage points to 52 per cent of Quebec online shoppers. This growth was not slowed down by the increase in the monthly fee for Amazon Prime that came into effect last May.

The survey also shows that online purchases remained relatively stable after the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, 75 per cent of Quebec adults made online purchases in 2022, a result similar to the proportions of 75 per cent in 2021 and 78 per cent in 2020. Before the pandemic, in 2019, this proportion was 63 per cent.

In 2022, the total amount of online purchases made by Quebec adults was estimated at $16.4 billion, 1.62 per cent higher than a year earlier. During the same period, the average value of monthly online purchases increased from $310.43 to $311.86, a slight increase of 0.46 per cent.

The NETendances survey was conducted between Jan. 3 and 29 of this year among 1,025 adult Quebec Internet users aged 18 and over. The maximum margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on April 5, 2023.