Traffic Trends for Canada Apparel Stores
Steady Traffic Levels Mask a Year-Over-Year Softening
Canada apparel e-commerce stores averaged 6,549.8 monthly visitors in January 2026, a figure that sits roughly in line with the 6,500–6,900 range maintained throughout most of 2025. However, when compared against the same month in 2024 — which registered 5,499.8 average monthly visitors — the January-over-January picture appears nominally positive on the surface. The more telling story emerges when contrasting 2025's subdued traffic plateau against the sharp seasonal peaks recorded in late 2024. September 2024 surged to 9,661.8 average visits, followed by an October peak of 10,308.7 and a November high of 10,513.3. None of those levels were approached at any point in 2025, with the segment's busiest 2025 month (August) reaching only 6,858.2 — a -34.8% drop versus November 2024's peak. This compression of seasonal amplitude suggests the segment is losing its ability to capitalize on high-intent shopping windows such as back-to-school and the holiday run-up.
Organic Search Dominates, But Its Grip Is Loosening
As of January 2026, organic search (SEO) accounts for 91.6% of total traffic across Canada apparel stores, representing 4,879,222 visits out of a total 5,324,995. Paid search contributes just 0.5% (26,519 visits), while paid social accounts for 0.3% (17,429 visits) and organic social for 7.5% (401,825 visits). The channel mix reveals an overwhelming dependence on unpaid search, which makes the segment particularly exposed to algorithm shifts or competitive displacement in search rankings. That vulnerability is already materializing: organic search traffic declined -9.2% year-over-year, a meaningful contraction for a channel that drives nearly all visits. Paid investment remains negligible — with paid search and paid social together accounting for less than 1% of traffic — leaving stores with limited diversification levers to offset organic losses.
Revenue Per Visitor Holds Up Despite Traffic Headwinds
Average store revenue in January 2026 stood at $41,393.80, down from a 2024 Q4 peak of $69,971.00 in November 2024 but broadly consistent with the $41,000–$43,000 range that characterized most of 2025. Importantly, revenue has not declined at the same pace as traffic during the period of organic softness. For context, average traffic in January 2026 (6,549.8) is only modestly above January 2024 (5,499.8, +19.1%), yet average revenue in January 2026 ($41,393.80) is significantly ahead of January 2024 ($36,434.67, +13.6%). This indicates that revenue per visitor has been compressing slightly — stores are generating proportionally less revenue relative to traffic gains — but the gap has not widened dramatically. The consistent $41,000–$43,000 revenue floor across 2025 suggests that conversion quality or average order values may be partially compensating for the erosion in raw traffic volume. Still, the failure to replicate the late-2024 revenue spikes (September–November 2024 averaged above $68,000) points to a structural shift in seasonal demand capture that Canadian apparel merchants will need to address through more aggressive paid or social channel investment heading into 2026's peak periods.
SEO Performance for Canada Apparel Stores
Organic Traffic Trends and Seasonal Patterns
Canada apparel e-commerce stores recorded an average SEO traffic of 6,001.5 visits in January 2026, reflecting a year-over-year decline of -9.2% in organic search traffic and a -10.1% contraction in organic SERPs visibility. Examining the full two-year trajectory reveals a pronounced seasonality pattern: SEO traffic climbed sharply from 6,119.7 in March 2024 to a peak of 10,202.5 in November 2024 before retreating to 6,885.2 by January 2025. The 2025 cycle, however, tells a notably different story — the expected autumn surge failed to materialize, with September 2025 reaching only 6,250.8 compared to 9,557.3 in September 2024, a drop of approximately -34.6%. October and November 2025 similarly underperformed their prior-year counterparts (6,224.2 vs. 10,193.9 and 6,075.4 vs. 10,202.5, respectively), suggesting that the segment lost significant ground during its most commercially critical window. SEO traffic as a share of total traffic has remained dominant throughout the period, consistently accounting for over 90% of all visits — in August 2024, for instance, SEO traffic of 6,871.2 represented 97.4% of total traffic of 7,057.1, underscoring the segment's near-total reliance on organic search as a channel.
Traffic Concentration and Store-Level Distribution
The distribution of SEO traffic across stores reveals a highly concentrated landscape. Of the 812 stores tracked, 809 fall in the under-50k monthly SEO traffic tier, while just 2 stores reach the 100k–250k band and a single store surpasses 250k visits. This extreme skew means that the segment average of 6,001.5 monthly SEO visits is heavily influenced by a small number of outliers, and the median experience for most Canadian apparel stores is likely far below that figure. For the vast majority of operators, organic search delivers modest volume, which amplifies the impact of any algorithmic shifts or ranking losses. The fact that organic SERP growth declined -10.1% year-over-year alongside traffic declines suggests that fewer pages are ranking — not merely that ranked pages are receiving less click-through — pointing to a structural weakening rather than a purely demand-side softening.
Domain Authority and Backlink Profile Deterioration
Domain authority has trended downward over the analysis window, with the average PageRank sitting at 2.21 in January 2026 — a -13.2% decline year-over-year. From a recent high of 3.24 in October–November 2024, PageRank fell sharply to 2.60 by January 2025 and recovered only partially to 3.00 by August 2025 before sliding again to 2.21 by January 2026. This erosion in domain authority aligns with the traffic declines and suggests that the segment's link equity is weakening over time. Referring domain counts have shown high month-to-month volatility but a gradual compression in recent months: average referring domains stood at 544.2 in January 2026, down from 619.7 in October 2025 and significantly below the 2,315.6 recorded in January 2025 — though that January 2025 figure likely reflects an anomalous backlink spike from December 2024's 40,329.5 average backlinks and 4,505.8 referring domains. Stripping out that outlier period, referring domains have hovered in the 540–680 range through mid-to-late 2025, while total backlink counts of 29,208.7 in January 2026 remain reasonably stable. The divergence between a relatively steady backlink count and declining PageRank and referring domains implies that link quality, rather than raw volume, is the primary driver of authority erosion within this segment.
Paid Media Trends for Canada Apparel Stores
Paid Search Spend in Steep Decline
Canada apparel e-commerce stores have experienced a dramatic contraction in paid search investment over the past year. Average monthly paid search spend peaked at $872.56 in January 2025 before collapsing to $86.82 by December 2025—a -90.1% decline over that eleven-month stretch. The most recent period, January 2026, shows a modest uptick to $120.81, though this remains far below year-ago levels. On a year-over-year basis, paid search cost growth stands at -91.6%, reflecting a near-complete withdrawal from Google Ads bidding activity across the segment.
This retrenchment is mirrored in adoption rates. Only 21.0% of Canadian apparel stores ran Google Ads in the most recent month, down from a 26.4% participation rate when measured across the full current year. The segment's average Google Ads spend of $76.27 is a fraction of the global average of $242.95—representing just 31.4% of what stores worldwide are investing in paid search. This gap signals that Canadian apparel merchants are not simply spending less per campaign; many have exited the channel altogether.
Paid Traffic Volumes Follow Spending Off a Cliff
The traffic consequences of this spend withdrawal are equally stark. Paid search traffic, which accounted for 13.9% of total site visits in April 2024, had fallen to just 1.1% of traffic by December 2025. In absolute terms, average paid search visits dropped from a high of approximately 1,418 sessions per store in March 2024 to just 132 sessions in December 2025. January 2026 shows a slight recovery to 154 sessions, keeping the paid search share of total traffic at a thin 1.4%.
Year-over-year paid traffic growth registers at -86.3%—a figure that confirms the trend is structural rather than seasonal. For context, total site traffic in January 2026 averaged 11,289.95 sessions per store, meaning organic and other channels are now carrying virtually the entire traffic load. Stores that once used paid search to drive meaningful top-of-funnel volume have clearly pivoted their acquisition strategies elsewhere or scaled back growth investment significantly.
Meta Ads Participation Remains Marginal, But Spend Is Competitive
While Google Ads has seen mass abandonment, Meta Ads activity in the Canadian apparel segment is notably thin from a participation standpoint—fewer than 1% of stores ran Meta campaigns either over the past year (0.8%) or in the most recent month (0.8%). However, among the small cohort that does invest in Meta, spend levels are far more competitive globally. The segment's average Meta Ads spend of $2,605.89 reaches 90.9% of the global average of $2,866.26, suggesting that active Meta advertisers in this segment are committing meaningfully to the channel.
Total paid media spend across all channels averages $591.84 per store for the segment, compared to a global average of $928.11—placing Canadian apparel stores at 63.8% of global peers. The combination of low Google Ads investment, minimal Meta adoption, and the sharp year-over-year declines in both spend and traffic volume paints a picture of a segment increasingly reliant on non-paid acquisition strategies, whether organic search, social, email, or direct traffic, to sustain their customer base heading into 2026.
Organic Social for Canada Apparel Stores
Instagram Remains the Dominant Organic Social Channel
Instagram continues to be the primary organic social driver for Canada apparel e-commerce stores, though absolute traffic volumes have declined since the spring peak. In April 2025, average Instagram traffic stood at 913.6 visits per store, representing 6.7% of total traffic. By January 2026, that figure had fallen to 507.5 visits — a drop of roughly -44.4% in raw volume over nine months. However, the share of total traffic attributable to Instagram has remained relatively stable, fluctuating between 6.4% and 9.2%, with the November 2025 peak of 9.2% coinciding with the holiday shopping season. The January 2026 reading of 7.2% sits in line with mid-year norms, suggesting that broader site traffic contraction — rather than Instagram-specific underperformance — accounts for much of the absolute decline.
Posting cadence has remained essentially flat month-over-month. Stores averaged 3.5 posts per week in January 2026, up only marginally from 3.5 posts the prior month (+0.03 posts per week). Across all stores, the average posting frequency sits at 3.9 posts per week. Follower base distribution reveals a segment dominated by smaller accounts: 316 stores have under 10k followers, and 235 fall in the 10k–50k range, while only 33 stores have surpassed 250k followers. This skew toward smaller audiences helps explain the modest average engagement rate of 0.012%, which reflects the challenge of converting follower bases into meaningful traffic at scale without significant reach amplification.
TikTok Traffic Shows Volatile but Structurally Growing Presence
TikTok's contribution to store traffic has grown substantially over the tracked period, albeit unevenly. In January 2025, average TikTok traffic was just 36.5 visits per store, accounting for 0.6% of total traffic. By January 2026, this had risen to 214.8 visits and a 2.4% share — representing a +488.4% increase in raw TikTok traffic year-over-year. The channel experienced a notable spike in March 2025 (309.1 average visits, 3.4% share), followed by a pullback in April, before stabilizing in the 2.6%–3.3% range through summer and fall 2025.
Weekly upload frequency on TikTok has picked up meaningfully entering 2026. Stores averaged 2.46 uploads per week in January 2026, up from 1.72 in December 2025, a +0.75 upload-per-week increase month-over-month. This acceleration in posting activity aligns with the channel's sustained traffic contribution above 2% and may reflect growing recognition among Canadian apparel merchants that TikTok requires consistent volume to maintain algorithmic visibility.
Organic Social as a Classified Channel Is Gaining Share Rapidly
Beyond platform-specific referrals, the broader organic social traffic classification has shown the most dramatic growth trajectory in this dataset. From near-zero levels in early 2025 — averaging just 0.27 visits per store in January 2025 — organic social traffic climbed to 494.2 average visits per store in January 2026. As a share of total traffic, this channel moved from essentially 0.0% to 7.5% over 13 months, a structural shift that signals meaningful investment in social content strategies across the segment.
The steady upward climb — from 2.0% in April 2025, to 4.9% in June, 6.8% in October, and 7.5% in January 2026 — suggests compounding returns rather than a one-time event. December 2025 and January 2026 both registered organic social traffic above 483 visits on average, indicating that holiday momentum has carried into the new year without a typical seasonal pullback. For Canada apparel stores, organic social has transitioned from a negligible referral source to one that now rivals or exceeds many paid channels in share of site traffic.
Website Performance for Canada Apparel Stores
Lighthouse Performance Signals Weak Technical Health
Canada apparel e-commerce stores recorded an average Lighthouse Performance score of 51.2/100 in January 2026, reflecting a marginal decline from 51.7/100 the prior month (-0.8%). While the month-over-month drop is modest, a score in the low 50s places the majority of these stores in a range widely considered below acceptable thresholds for competitive retail environments, where page speed directly influences conversion rates and paid media efficiency. Accessibility scores followed a similar downward trajectory, slipping from 86.9/100 to 86.2/100 (-0.8%), suggesting that technical debt is accumulating across multiple dimensions simultaneously. Store operators in this segment should treat these declining performance metrics as compounding risk factors rather than isolated anomalies.
SEO Scores Remain a Relative Strength
In contrast to performance and accessibility, Lighthouse SEO scores held steady at 92.8/100 in January 2026, virtually unchanged from 93.0/100 the previous month (0%). This is a meaningful bright spot for the segment, indicating that on-page SEO fundamentals—meta tags, crawlability, structured markup—are being maintained with consistency even as other technical dimensions slide. A score approaching 93/100 suggests the segment has invested meaningfully in discoverability, which supports organic acquisition at a time when paid channel costs continue to rise. However, sustaining this advantage requires that the underlying performance scores improve; search engine ranking algorithms increasingly factor Core Web Vitals into page ranking, meaning the 51.2/100 performance score could eventually erode the SEO gains if left unaddressed.
Catalog Size and Pricing Trends Point to Premiumization
The SKU distribution across Canada apparel stores skews toward larger catalogs, with the 1,001–2,500 SKU bracket being the most populated at 292 stores. Mid-to-large catalogs (501 SKUs and above) account for 536 stores in total, compared to 282 stores operating with 500 SKUs or fewer—a ratio that reflects the operational complexity typical of established apparel retailers managing seasonal assortments. Stores in the 2,501+ bracket, while the smallest group at 95 stores, represent the highest-complexity segment and likely face the steepest performance penalties due to larger page payloads and catalog-driven rendering challenges.
Average product pricing tells a compelling premiumization story. From $220.06 in August 2025, average prices climbed steadily to a peak of $325.52 in November 2025—a +47.9% increase over three months, consistent with seasonal holiday assortment shifts toward higher-ticket items. Prices moderated to $303.91 in December 2025 and $300.45 in January 2026 as post-holiday inventory rotated in. The most striking data point is February 2026, where average pricing surged to $431.53—a +43.6% jump from January and +96.1% above the August 2025 baseline. This February spike may reflect a deliberate pivot toward premium spring collections or reduced discounting activity following end-of-season clearance. Regardless of the driver, the upward pricing trajectory underscores that Canada apparel stores are increasingly positioning toward higher average order values, making site performance optimization even more critical—slow-loading pages carry a proportionally higher cost when each abandoned session represents a $300–$430 missed transaction.