The Payment Source Blog

The prepaid market is one of the fastest and most innovative growing payment segments in Canada (see source). According to a study commissioned by the CPPO, as of the end of 2019 open-loop cards such as prepaid Visa or Mastercard have achieved 3 consecutive years of 25% growth to the previous year. This amounts to Canadians loading a staggering $4.8 billion dollars onto these prepaid cards. According to Theodore Iacobuzio, vice president of research and director of the Prepaid Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group, we can expect to see continued evolution as prepaid cards in Canada are only in the early stages of their life cycle. 

Consumer shopping habits have shifted towards online shopping over the last few years thanks to ecommerce (see source). In fact, retail ecommerce in Canada will reach CA$52.04 billion this year, up by 20.7%. To provide a seamless consumer experience and provide a way to gap the bridge between brick-and-motor with ecommerce, C-store owners need to adapt. 

Consumer shopping habits are changing and retailers have to adapt to ensure they are positioned to take advantage of these shifting behaviours. Historically, Canada’s e-commerce market has been slow to develop but in the coming months and years it is expected to grow significantly and it’s predicted that Canada will catch up to other international marketplaces (see source) Approximately 80% Canadians shop online and are buying more items, more often than ever before, and across a variety of product categories (see source) displaying that the e-commerce market is becoming the ‘new normal’ of shopping.