What's up with the Internet?

Before I moved here, I used the internet for everything.  If I didn’t like the website of a certain business or couldn’t perform the function I wanted, like online reservations, I often chose another business that had a website with the capability that I was looking for.  I also did a lot of my shopping online.  However, I’ve found that many businesses in Canada don’t even have websites or if they do, they aren’t as advanced as I’m used to.  Here is an example to illustrate my point:

Compare the following websites for Wal-Mart Canada http://www.walmart.ca/home and Wal-Mart US http://www.walmart.com/. To me, one website is substantially easier to use and readily provides the functions I want (guess which one?) such as online shopping. 

Wal-Mart is the largest retailer in the world so I’d expect it to be seamless, but it isn’t – some differences are slight, but not seamless.  Now, imagine the smaller businesses.  Finding a business can sometimes be challenge enough, but to find ones with working websites is even more difficult.  Another example:

Try a Google search for “car detailing Toronto” – I struggled to find 8 car detailing companies with usable (lists services, prices and contact information) websites.  While a Google search for “car detailing Minneapolis” yields 8 on the first page. 

Is this just because there are more detailing locations in Minneapolis?  I doubt it since Minneapolis is a much smaller city.  There just are less small companies here that even have websites so I’ve found that people tend to use the yellow pages or yellow pages.com to find businesses versus Google searches and websites.

As you might expect, online shopping is less prominent here, and many sites are not well-structured for online shopping.  Buying from US retailers isn’t a good option because many don’t ship to Canada and if they do, you’ll pay a lot of money for shipping and customs fees (and if delivered by UPS they will also charge you a fee upon delivery worth 30-50% of the value of the item - I learned the hard way).  I’m going to have to get used to shopping in stores again – which is an issue for another post. 

One last tidbit on the internet in Canada to be aware of:  The main internet provider, Rogers, has been criticized for content monitoring and traffic redirection - things that would cause an outrage in the US, and made me uncomfortable.  See Wikipedia article for more details.

Don’t get me wrong, there is good internet here.  It just isn’t the same (one exception are the Service Canada/Ontario websites, they are great!).  I think this likely has to do with the fact that building all of the infrastructure is expensive, and since Canada is much less densely populated, it may be harder for businesses (especially small) to justify the fixed costs.  They'll get there someday or I'll get better at interacting with humans!