Canada
- GDP nominal: 1,785 billion USD
- Unemployment rate: 6.9%
- Population: 39 million
- Ease-of-doing-business rank: 14th
Canada has the 11th largest (nominal) economy in the world and is one of the world's top 10 trading nations, with a highly globalized economy. As with other developed nations, the Canadian economy is dominated by the service industry, which employs about three quarters of Canadians.
Though the Canadian economy is closely integrated with the U.S. economy, it has developed unique economic institutions. The country's average household disposable income per capita is over 23,900 USD, higher than the OECD average.
The federal government and many Canadian industries have also started to expand trade with emerging Asian markets, in an attempt to diversify exports; Asia is now Canada's second-largest export market after the U.S.
Direct Selling in Canada
- GDP Growth Constant USD 2014: 3.2%
- YoY Industry Growth Constant USD 2014: -2.6%
Canada is a mature market in the Direct Selling industry representing 1.8 billion USD in 2014. The landscape is composed of several local companies, some of them becoming world class leaders, and U.S. corporations.
The Canadian Direct Selling Association (founded in 1954) is well organized and has been doing excellent work in protecting the almost one million Direct Sellers and consumers. Its proximity to U.S. makes Canada an attractive market for U.S. Direct Selling companies. Multi-level marketing represents 81% of the industry revenue and females represent 9 out of 10 distributors.
In spite of its qualities, the Canadian market suffers from a negative image due to previous abuses as well as the growing competition of the E-commerce channel. Moreover, the dynamics of the demography have hampered the industry’s development: excluding Europe and Hong Kong, the only two major countries in the world having a median age above 40 years are Canada and Japan; it is in these very two markets that we observe a negative CAGR, respectively -2.7% for Canada and -2.3% in Japan.
Effective from July 1st, 2014 Canada has passed a new anti-spam law that might to some extent limit opportunities for distributors to develop their business.
Sources: ASENSHIA, World Bank, WFDSA, Euromonitor, Wikipedia
CAGR: Compound Annual Growth Rate expressed in Constant USD 2014, between 2011 and 2014
