Americans and Canadians Differ in Their Online

¶ … Americans and Canadians Differ in their Online Spending Habits?

It is no secret that the economies of most industrialized nations have been sluggish over the first part of the 21st century. However, consumer confidence in North America may be on the rise. For instance, according to a March 2012 Reuter report consumer confidence for Americans and Canadians remained stable as 26% of Americans (the highest level in over a year) and 28% of Canadians believed that their economies would improve over the next year. These figures are taken from the RBC U.S. Consumer Outlook Index and the RBC Canadian Consumer Outlook (RBC COI and RBC CCO respectively; Reuter, 2012). Of course this is really not as optimistic as the researchers depict it, because 26 or 28% does not represent a majority. Therefore, the real news is that the majority of citizens in these countries DO NOT believe there economy will improve. According to the same source the RBC Economics forecasted that the Canadian GDP would increase by 2.6% over 2012, whereas the U.S. GDP would increase by 2.5%, both strengthened by a rise in automobile sales and overall growth in consumer spending, which are mild improvements at best.

American and Canadian residents appeared to also have similar concerns regarding their personal financial situations. Both groups demonstrated a decrease in the numbers of citizens that believed their personal financial situations would improve. American consumers' outlook regarding their personal financial situation for the upcoming year dropped to 26% (a decrease of five percentage points), while slightly greater than one third of Canadians believed that their personal financial situation would improve in the upcoming year a decrease of two percentage points (Reuters, 2012).

Jason Round, the head of Financial Planning Support for the RBC Financial Planning Committee apparently shared consumer concern for their finances as he urged consumers to focus on managing their money and to develop a financial plan that emphasized includes investing and saving. He also recommended that families create and allow themselves an emergency fund by putting a convenient amount of money aside each pay period in case it is needed (Reuters, 2012). Despite their similar concerns regarding their economies Americans typically spend more than their northern neighbors on items like transportation, entertainment, and food, whereas Americans spend more on housing and healthcare than Canadians (Miller, 2011).

The internet is one of the fast growing mediums for consumer shopping in the world. Online shopping can range from essentials like food and clothing to luxury items. Given the access that both Americans and Canadians have to computers despite their similar stances on the states of their respective economies we would predict that Americans and Canadians would significantly differ regarding their online spending habits. In the present case we predict that Americans and Canadians would differ significantly in the amount of money they annually spend online.

Method

Participants

American participants were taken from a sample of U.S. citizens (n = 22) and data from a study of spending habits of Canadian citizens (n = 22).

Measures

The dependent variable was the total dollar amount spent online over the year by each of the levels of the independent (Americans and Canadians).

Procedure

Data for the Canadian subjects was taken from a separate study, whereas the data for the American subjects was collected directly. Mean values for online spending of both groups was calculated and entered into Microsoft Excel where a one sample t-test was calculated.

Results

The mean dollar annual value for online spending for the Canadian group was $780.00. The study from which the author collected that data from did not report the standard deviation or the sample size, so these were both estimated (s = 0.0; n = 22) as a one sample t test was calculated. The mean annual dollar amount spent by the U.S. group was $1,407.91 (s = 1209.63). The difference between the mean values for both groups was significant t (21) = 2.43, p = .02. Therefore the null hypothesis that the two groups did not differ significantly is rejected in favor of the alternative hypothesis.

Discussion

The results indicate that according to the data Americans differ significantly in their mean annual online spending amounts compared to Canadians. Moreover, based on the current data and the calculation of the t test we can also assume that Americans spend significantly different amount of money online than do their Canadian counterparts. The reasons for the greater online spending might reflect Americans' tendency to spend less on transportation and therefore they may do more shopping at home while on the computer, or Americans are more enthralled with technology than Canadians, or any other number of reasons. (In addition as an added observation it might be observed that obtained t was significant for a directional hypothesis, t (21) = 2.43, p = .01).

In terms of practicality we might be able to infer that if one were to have a business or one were to be opening a business that markets products to Americans one should make sure to offer some form of online catalog and offer the capability of online ordering to both Americans and Canadians, but especially for American products. Moreover, advertisements should include website information to prospective customers as well as online customer service departments.

However, before we get too excited about the current findings there are several serious flaws in the author's procedure that should be noted:

1. First, the author used a single sample t test when clearly the groups or the levels of the independent variable are mutually exclusive (independent groups). Therefore the calculation of the t test in this paper is inappropriate for the data and may not reflect the actual value of the inferential statistic (in fact it will not reflect the value of the proper t test for the data). This study is clearly not a repeated measures study.

2. Secondly, information about the Canadian group came from a study that did not provide the variance for the sample. The author set the sample variance for the Canadian group to zero. This will tend to underestimate the standard error term in the calculation of the t test for independent groups and inflate the obtained value of the t test. In order to perform the proper t test this descriptive statistic (either the variance or standard deviation) for the Canadian sample would need to be known.