When we look at the continent of North America, it’s impossible to overlook the sheer size of Canada. Canada has a massive land area of approximately 9-10 million square kilometers. However, it has only a population of around 38 million people. The population of Canada is primarily concentrated along the southern Great Lakes, with other marginally more populated areas like Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary, and Halifax.
Despite being the second largest city after Toronto, Montreal’s economic development is not at a disadvantage. It has a resident population of nearly 2 million and the highest GDP per capita. Unlike Toronto, French is the official language in Montreal, and 60.5% of the city’s population is native French. The large French-speaking population makes Montreal, Canada one of the top three French-speaking capitals of the world.
Canada’s E-Commerce Industry
As an economically developed country in North America, Canada’s e-commerce business is far behind that of its other US neighbor. However, according to Statistics Canada, the Canadian e-commerce industry has made significant strides in 2021. In comparison to prior years, there was a greater increase in both transaction volume and transaction value. During the COVID-19 epidemic, online shopping surpassed offline shopping as the most popular consumer buying channel among Canadians. With the rising trend of online shopping, the Canadian e-commerce business has plenty of space for expansion.
The Importance of French in the Canadian eCommerce Market
As Canada’s most acclaimed French-speaking city, Montreal’s French presence far exceeds the data. Only those who have visited Montreal can understand the significance of the language, as French words are found everywhere. People around you speak fluent French whether you are shopping, eating in restaurants, or visiting popular local attractions. It’s not that Montreal residents do not speak English. On the contrary, most locals speak excellent English. They recognize the significance of English as another official language in Canada. However, as descendants of the French, the common use of the French language is the result of their pride in their French culture and customs that have been passed down through generations.
In Quebec, e-commerce companies are giving English and French bilingual product page descriptions to capture the consumer market of more than 8 million people. For example, Amazon Canada, Walmart Canada, eBay Canada, Canadian Tire, Best Buy Canada, Home Depot Canada, Costco Canada, and other well-known Canadian e-commerce platforms have taken important steps to implement English and French bilingual customer service teams with strong interpersonal skills that resonates with Canadian customers, leading to wider opportunities for brand growth.
Tips for Ecommerce Businesses
Here are some considerations for e-commerce companies looking to join the Canadian E-Commerce market:
- Overseas firms seeking to establish a strong presence in the Canadian e-commerce market must not overlook the significance of French in the Canadian market.
- If you want your brand’s items to sell effectively in the Canadian e-commerce market, it is important to provide product packaging and instructions in both English and French.
- Brands must provide bilingual customer service and technical assistance in English and French, as well as bilingual language options for their local 800 service hotline IVR.
- If brands wish to truly make a presence in the local consumer market, it is critical to invest in expert French customer service capabilities. For example, a local toll-free French after-sales service hotline must be established for the company. This will bring brands and their local consumers closer together.
Requirements for the North American Market
Localized customer service and tech support solutions are essential when organizations expand into the North American market. Since North America – Canada in particular – is such a diverse place, multilingual customer service is essential for global e-commerce brands in the clothing, beauty, mechanical engineering, home décor, electronic devices, security monitoring, and medical equipment industries – amongst others. Callnovo can design the best long-term operations plan that provides local customer support for any business – regardless of the industry.
Callnovo’s Services for Brands Entering the Canadian Ecommerce Market
In the United States, Callnovo offers native English-Spanish bilingual customer service outsourcing solutions. Similarly for the Canadian market, Callnovo can provide customer service outsourcing operating solutions for native bilingual English-French business representatives. These services are provided locally in Canada, nearshore to Central America, and/or offshore in South America.
Conclusion
To summarize, the Canadian e-commerce market offers a lot of room for growth and is a superb market for an e-commerce business – however, brand services that are deeply supported and trusted by local consumers cannot be built in a day; it requires firms to put effort in both CRM systems’ customer service technical support teams and also customer service operations management teams. As a result, organizations must select professional customer service partners to provide the expert technical support and service operations they need. When it comes to North America markets – the Canadian ecommerce market in particular –Callnovo is the best option to help you develop your business. Callnovo offers an 800 toll-free inbound hotline as well as French after-sales support. Because Callnovo excels in multilingual customer service, obtaining high quality English and French bilingual customer support is easy and trustworthy.