Why this brief exists
Most numbers quoted about Canadian ecommerce come from surveys with their own methods and from forecasts with their own assumptions. Statistics Canada publishes one monthly series that is neither: the retail e-commerce sales of Canadian-based retailers, collected alongside total retail sales in the Monthly Retail Trade Survey. It is small, it is consistent, and it is revised in the open.
This brief reads that series and nothing else. Every figure below is computed from the table cited at the end, and the table is attached as a file so the arithmetic can be repeated.
What online sales are worth each month
In dollars, seasonally adjusted online sales were $5.7 billion in June 2026, 9.9% on the month, inside a retail total of $74.3 billion. Year over year the online figure grew 18.7%; total retail trade grew 5.2%.
The gap between those two growth rates is the whole story of the share line above. When online grows faster than the store, the share rises; when a strong month for the whole of retail arrives, it can fall even as online sales grow.
| Month | Billions of dollars |
|---|---|
| Dec 23 | $3.6 |
| Jan 24 | $4.5 |
| Feb 24 | $4.6 |
| Mar 24 | $4.7 |
| Apr 24 | $4.7 |
| May 24 | $4.6 |
| Jun 24 | $4.6 |
| Jul 24 | $4.9 |
| Aug 24 | $4.7 |
| Sep 24 | $5.0 |
| Oct 24 | $5.0 |
| Nov 24 | $5.1 |
| Dec 24 | $5.0 |
| Jan 25 | $5.0 |
| Feb 25 | $5.0 |
| Mar 25 | $4.8 |
| Apr 25 | $5.0 |
| May 25 | $4.9 |
| Jun 25 | $4.8 |
| Jul 25 | $5.2 |
| Aug 25 | $4.9 |
| Sep 25 | $4.8 |
| Oct 25 | $4.9 |
| Nov 25 | $4.8 |
| Dec 25 | $5.1 |
| Jan 26 | $5.1 |
| Feb 26 | $5.0 |
| Mar 26 | $5.3 |
| Apr 26 | $5.2 |
| May 26 | $5.2 |
| Jun 26 | $5.7 |
The seasonal shape
The seasonally adjusted series is built to hide the calendar. The unadjusted one shows it. In 2025, unadjusted online sales came to $59.2 billion, 7.0% of the year's retail trade. December alone carried 8.8% of its month's trade online and sold 33% more online than the average month of the year.
For anyone planning a warehouse or a delivery fleet that is the operative number: the year is not twelve equal months, and the online share of it peaks exactly when the parcel network is busiest.
| Month | Share of retail trade |
|---|---|
| Jan 25 | 7.3% |
| Feb 25 | 7.0% |
| Mar 25 | 6.7% |
| Apr 25 | 6.9% |
| May 25 | 6.6% |
| Jun 25 | 6.5% |
| Jul 25 | 6.4% |
| Aug 25 | 6.2% |
| Sep 25 | 6.7% |
| Oct 25 | 6.8% |
| Nov 25 | 8.4% |
| Dec 25 | 8.8% |
What the series does and does not count
Retail trade here is the NAICS 44-45 definition Statistics Canada uses for the Monthly Retail Trade Survey. Retail e-commerce sales are the online sales of Canadian-based retailers; a Canadian buying from a foreign retailer is not in this series, which is why the share is a floor on Canadian online buying rather than a measure of it.
Statistics Canada also excludes some transactions a reader might call ecommerce, among them travel and accommodation bookings, ticket purchases and financial transactions, because they are not retail trade. Recent months are revised in later releases; the values here are as published on the release date in the dataset, and the brief will be updated when the table is.
How to use these numbers
The share is the useful figure for sizing. Multiply a market's retail sales by the online share and the result is a defensible estimate of the online retail dollars behind it, with a published source under both terms. The seasonal series says how far the December figure will sit above that average.
What the series cannot do is say how many parcels those dollars become, or where they go. It has no order counts, no basket sizes and no destinations. Those are questions for a different dataset, and a later brief.
Method
Values are Statistics Canada Table 20-10-0056-01 for Canada, retail trade, total retail sales and retail e-commerce sales, unadjusted and seasonally adjusted, in thousands of dollars, as published on 21 August 2026 and retrieved on 13 September 2026 through the Web Data Service. Shares are e-commerce sales divided by total retail sales for the same month and adjustment. Annual figures sum the twelve unadjusted months. Growth rates compare a month with the same month a year earlier. Nothing is interpolated or forecast.
Sources
- Statistics Canada. Table 20-10-0056-01 Monthly retail trade sales by province and territory (Canada; retail trade; total retail sales and retail e-commerce sales; unadjusted and seasonally adjusted). Released 21 August 2026, accessed 13 September 2026. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=2010005601 (opens in a new tab)
- Statistics Canada. The Daily, "Retail trade, June 2026", 21 August 2026. The e-commerce paragraph states $5.7 billion and 7.7% for June 2026, which the dataset reproduces. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/260821/dq260821a-eng.htm (opens in a new tab)
- Statistics Canada. The Daily, "Retail trade, December 2025", 20 February 2026, for the December 2025 e-commerce paragraph and the 2025 annual retail total. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/260220/dq260220a-eng.htm (opens in a new tab)
- Statistics Canada. Monthly Retail Trade Survey, definitions and data quality notes, including the scope of retail e-commerce sales. https://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/p2SV.pl?Function=getSurvey&SDDS=2406 (opens in a new tab)
Vectors: v1446859483, v1446859481, v1446859484, v1446859482. Unit: thousands of Canadian dollars.