Statistics reveal that the going has been good for businesses in Canada for the year 2013.  This country sold goods and services worth $ 136 billion, a commendable feat by any standards.

The focus, these days, however is on ecommerce. In this segment, Canada’s share is 13 percent of the total business done for goods and services.

Here is where considerable improvement is needed.  

Even though, among those enterprises that sold online in 2013, 25 percent of the total sales were generated from online transactions, e-commerce needs to bolster its figure even more.

According to Daniel Assouline of Montreal, e-commerce growth may well be on the wane in Canada. After a steady growth on a year-to-year basis for more than 4 years, the trend, seems to be losing steam

Is it because Canadians have discovered how much better online shopping experience is in other countries?

Even though sluggish economic growth may have played its part, other factors have also contributed in slowing down online shopping in this country.  

“In the ecommerce segment, Canadians suffer a relative lack of options they have at their disposal”, says an ecommerce specialist. “Domestic consumers feel they get better deals when they do cross border online shopping”.  

Whatever be the shortcomings, individuals like Daniel Assouline of Montreal are working hard to plug all loopholes coming in the way of ecommerce growth in Canada.

Recent studies show that Canada has a perceptible shortage of competent and skilled e-commerce experts, which is negatively impacting the growth in some essential segments.

“This problem has to tackled soon”, says a leading Canadian economist.  “Otherwise we may have to pay dearly”.

There is one more area that needs improvement.

Even though  majority of Canadian SMEs have adequate infrastructure for high-speed internet connection, only a small section have put up websites for e-retailing and a even smaller proportion of SMEs do business online.

For all developing economies ecommerce is the cornerstone for accelerating growth strategies. Daniel Assouline conceived Upclick to make online transactions simple.

He knew effective payment processing tools builds businesses.

Daniel Assouline formerly Chairman and Co-founder of Upclick, is presently CEO of Lavasoft, an anti-spyware development company.