Barriers to Electronic Commerce in Canada:
A Size of Firm and Industry Analysis

Economic Conference 2005 - Growth, Wealth and Sustainability
Statistics Canada

Electronic commerce in Canada has grown from $5.7 billion in 2000 to over $28 billion in 2004. Despite this growth, barriers remain to e-commerce's effective integration into the economy. The authors compare responses to Statistic Canada's Survey of Electronic Commerce and Technology for the years 2001 and 2003. This Canada-wide business survey lists ten barriers to e-commerce adoption and asks firms to identify those that apply. The authors identify statistically significant changes over time and show that barriers are changing, but are not consistent across firm size or industry sector. The authors conclude that policies aimed at encouraging e-commerce adoption must be specific to both firm size and industry sector.

The research paper is available for download from the Statistics Canada website in PDF Format.