Confirming the city’s growing reputation as a tech force to be reckoned with, four Metro Vancouver-based companies took home awards in Canada Post’s third annual E-Commerce Innovation Awards September 23.
This is especially significant due to the fact that there were only nine awards in total.
Aritzia, Best Buy Canada, Telus and MEC were honoured at the event, which provides a total of $1 million in prizes to be divvied up among the winners.
Canada Post said it established the awards to promote e-commerce growth – an area the Crown corporation is hoping will boost its bottom line . Letter mail has been dropping since 2006 due to the increasing use of the Internet for communications, bill delivery, etc., but the organization is hoping to take advantage of the increase in online shopping.
“In just a few years, online retail has evolved tremendously in this country,” said Canada Post’s René Desmarais, senior vice-president, parcels.“From an increasingly sophisticated customer experience to customer acquisition and loyalty, retailers in Canada are improving all aspects of the e-commerce experience.”
The Vancouver-area winners, and their categories, were:
- Aritzia (Vancouver) – Best e-commerce shopping experience;
- Best Buy Canada (Burnaby) – Best omni-channel integration;
- Telus (Burnaby) – Best mobile experience (large); and
- MEC (Vancouver) – Best customer/community outreach.
The winners of the other five categories, which were all Ontario-based, were:
- Yummi Candles (Mississauga) – best mobile experience (small);
- Carnivore Club (Toronto) – most creative marketing campaign (small);
- Tees for the People (Ottawa) – most innovative start-up;
- The Roasters Pack (Oakville) – consumer champion award; and
- Hudson’s Bay (Toronto) – Canada Post e-commerce innovator’s award.
- With files from Jen St. Denis.
@EmmaHampelBIV
