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Statistics

Canadian Online Retail Sales Statistics

A data-led look at Canadian retail e-commerce sales, monthly changes in 2026, and annual revenue in 2024, with clear notes on scope and measurement.

November 12, 2026 5 min read pstinbc.ca Editorial Team

Contents

Canadian retail e-commerce sales in August 2026

Seasonally adjusted retail e-commerce sales in Canada reached $5.649 billion in August 2026, an increase of 1.1% from July. Compared with August 2025, sales were 15.3% higher. E-commerce represented 7.6% of total Canadian retail trade that month. The August amount is preliminary and expressed in current dollars; it measures retail e-commerce, not all online purchases of services or other non-retail activity. Statistics Canada, Retail trade, August 2026

The monthly and annual comparisons describe different things. A month-to-month change tracks movement from the immediately preceding month, while the year-over-year comparison sets August against the same month one year earlier. Both August comparisons are positive, though they do not by themselves establish a longer-term trend or explain what drove the change.

Monthly Canadian online retail sales and changes

The seasonally adjusted series shows notable movement across the reported months. Sales rose sharply in June, declined in July, then increased in August. The table summarizes the monthly values and the reported month-over-month and year-over-year changes. Dollar figures are millions of dollars, rounded to the nearest million; monthly values are preliminary where identified as such by Statistics Canada.

MonthSales (millions of dollars)Change from previous monthChange from same month a year earlier
April 2026$5,086-1.2%+0.8%
May 2026$5,025-1.5%+3.1%
June 2026$5,727+9.9%+18.7%
July 2026$5,494-3.5%+6.0%
August 2026$5,649+1.1%+15.3%

Sources: Statistics Canada, Retail trade, April 2026; May 2026; June 2026; July 2026; August 2026.

These figures do not describe a steady climb: retail e-commerce fell in April and May, jumped in June, fell again in July, and rose in August. The largest month-over-month increase in this five-month span was June’s 9.9%; the largest decline was July’s 3.5%. Yet each month from April through August was above its year-earlier level, with the annual comparison ranging from 0.8% in April to 18.7% in June. Month-to-month volatility and positive year-over-year comparisons can occur together because the two measures use different reference periods.

How the 2026 monthly pattern compares with late 2025 and January

The available earlier observations add context without filling every month in a continuous series. In December 2025, seasonally adjusted retail e-commerce sales were $4.255 billion, up 3.6% from November but 2.9% below December 2024. In January 2026, sales were reported as $4.4 billion, up 1.5% from December, and accounted for 6.2% of total retail trade. The January amount is rounded to one decimal billion in the release, so it is not directly comparable in precision with the table’s million-dollar figures. Statistics Canada, Retail trade, December 2025; Retail trade, January 2026

Taken together, the reported monthly observations show that the year-over-year direction was not uniform throughout the period. December 2025 was below its year-earlier level, while every reported comparison from January through August 2026 was positive where a year-over-year figure is supplied. The releases do not provide a year-over-year January value in the checked observations here, so the January increase should be read only as a month-to-month change.

Canadian retail e-commerce’s share of total retail trade

The reported share of total retail trade was 6.2% in January 2026 and 7.6% in August 2026. These are month-specific shares, based on seasonally adjusted retail e-commerce sales as a proportion of total retail trade. They indicate that online retail made up a larger portion of retail sales in August than in January, but two observations do not show the path between those dates. Statistics Canada, Retail trade, January 2026; Retail trade, August 2026

A share is distinct from a sales growth rate. The 7.6% figure describes e-commerce’s portion of all retail trade in August; the 15.3% figure compares August e-commerce sales with August 2025. Neither should be read as the proportion of Canadians who shop online, the percentage of all commerce conducted online, or the share of retail businesses with an online channel.

Annual Canadian retail e-commerce revenue and growth

Statistics Canada reported $73.7 billion in operating revenue from Canadian retail e-commerce in 2024, with annual growth of 9.0%. This is an annual revenue measure, distinct from the seasonally adjusted monthly sales estimates above. It provides a broader annual benchmark, but the annual and monthly figures should not be combined as though they were the same series or measure. Statistics Canada, Annual retail trade, 2024

The annual result and the monthly observations answer complementary questions. The 2024 total describes the scale of retail e-commerce operating revenue over a full year and its change from the preceding year. The 2026 monthly estimates show shorter-term movement in seasonally adjusted sales and comparisons with the same month a year earlier. Taken together, they show a substantial annual e-commerce market and positive year-over-year monthly readings in the reported April-to-August 2026 period, alongside meaningful month-to-month fluctuation.

Reading Canadian online retail sales statistics carefully

For a useful comparison, keep three distinctions in view: seasonally adjusted monthly sales versus annual operating revenue, month-over-month versus year-over-year change, and e-commerce’s share of retail trade versus the growth rate of e-commerce sales. The monthly dollar values are nominal amounts as reported; no inflation-adjusted interpretation is included in these figures. The sales measures also cover retail e-commerce rather than every kind of online transaction.

The clearest recent snapshot is August 2026: $5.649 billion in seasonally adjusted retail e-commerce sales, up 1.1% from July and 15.3% from August 2025, accounting for 7.6% of total retail trade. The surrounding monthly figures show why a single growth rate is not enough to describe the series: increases and declines alternate even as year-over-year comparisons remain positive across April to August. The 2024 annual result adds a separate full-year view, with $73.7 billion in retail e-commerce operating revenue and 9.0% annual growth.

Sources

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pstinbc.ca Editorial Team

Editorial team

Independent editorial coverage of bc shopping & small-business literacy.

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