Williams-Sonoma Inc., the largest-selling North American home furnishings retail chain based on web sales, is cozying up to Canadian online shoppers. The retailer, No. 23 in the Internet Retailer 2017 Top 1000, has launched four Canada-specific e-commerce sites for its primary brands: Williams-Sonoma (WilliamsSonoma.ca), Pottery Barn (PotteryBarn.ca), West Elm (WestElm.ca) and Pottery Barn Kids (PotteryBarnKids.ca). The sites are available only in English.
Previously, Canadian consumers who wanted to buy from these brands had to place orders on the U.S. e-commerce sites from desktop computers and use the Borderfree international checkout option. It could not take international orders from shoppers on mobile devices. The new .ca sites work for mobile shoppers. Borderfree is owned by Pitney Bowes.
Laura Alber, president and CEO of Williams-Sonoma, explained on the company’s Q3 earnings call in mid-November the company’s reasoning for changing its digital strategy in Canada. “We realized that while we had allowed customers to buy things, it wasn’t as relevant as it could be, and also there’s nuances with the pricing and matching different promotions that we wanted to get more cleared up and better control of inventory flow to the customers, so it’s a better experience,” she said. “In Canada, we have such a sizable retail business. It was time to make sure that we had the same consistent online experience that we do in the United States.”
Williams-Sonoma has had a physical presence in Canada since 2001, when it opened its first store in Toronto. Today it operates 24 retail stores in Canada. The company does not publicly release sales figures for its Canadian business.
The launch of the retailer’s Canada-specific websites follows that of web-only Wayfair Inc., No. 16, which launched Wayfair.ca in January 2016. Wayfair.ca is available in English and French, Canada’s official languages. Wayfair CEO Niraj Shah has been vocal about the growth of the company’s Canadian business, noting the market had been underserved online, and recently said aided brand awareness of the company in Canada is 62%. Wayfair also operates market-specific sites in the U.K. and Germany.
In addition to Canada and the U.S., Williams-Sonoma operates market-specific sites in the U.K. and Australia. There are also market-specific sites for Mexico, the Philippines, Mexico, South Korea and the Middle East operated by other companies through franchise agreements with Williams-Sonoma.
More than half of the money Canadian consumers spend with retailers online, 56.1%, is spent with retailers based outside of Canada, according to the Internet Retailer 2017 E-Commerce in Canada Report. Online sales in Canada are expected to grow 13.7% in 2018, Internet Retailer estimates. Further, the home furnishings and housewares category is one of the fastest-growing for North American online sales, according to the Online Home Goods Report from Internet Retailer. The combined online sales of the 102 housewares and home furnishings retailers in the Internet Retailer Top 1000 grew 27.5% in 2016—the biggest growth rate among the 15 product categories analyzed.