On November 17th, the Globe and Mail reported that Canadians placed $12.8 Billion worth of goods in 2007. This is an increase of 61% from the year 2005.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081117.wgtstatscan1117/BNStory/Technology/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20081117.wgtstatscan1117We don't have statistics for Muskoka readily available regarding online purchasing, but for sake of argument, let us assume that Muskoka is an average place. Based on the numbers above, if we reverse engineer the national numbers and then re-calculate for Muskoka population the numbers would look like this. ($12,800,000,000 online sales) divide by (Canada's population of approxmately 33,431,565) = $382 per capita in Canada for 2007.
Now, lets see what Muskoka might look like. ($382 per capita) times (estimated permanent population of 53,000) = 20,460,000.
That is Twenty Million-Four Hundred and Sixty Thousand dollars. This is a rough estimate of the size of Muskoka's online purchasing power. These calculations don't even include the seasonal population.
Arguably, we have our own demographics and the numbers will vary somewhat from this estimate. But let's think about this.......The size of the market in Muskoka for online transactions is somewhere in the neighbourhood of $20 Million dollars per year. That's enough to make you sit up and take notice.
For more information on broadband and technology in Muskoka, visit Muskoka Community Network's website at
www.mcnet.ca
