Canada Home and Garden Ecommerce Industry Report

Overall Traffic Volume and Year-Over-Year Trajectory

Canadian Home and Garden e-commerce stores averaged 5,418.9 monthly visits in January 2026, reflecting a notable contraction from the segment's peak performance recorded in late 2024. Comparing January 2026 to January 2025 (5,984.1 visits), the segment has declined -9.4% year-over-year on a per-store basis. This pullback is particularly striking given that the same stores experienced a dramatic surge through the second half of 2024, with average traffic climbing from 5,702.9 in May 2024 to a high of 9,257.6 in November 2024—a gain of +62.4% across just six months. That autumn spike, likely driven by pre-holiday shopping and seasonal gardening closeout cycles, did not repeat in 2025. By contrast, the equivalent November 2025 figure came in at just 5,259.7, representing a -43.2% drop versus November 2024. The 2025 traffic curve has been notably flat, with monthly averages hovering in a narrow band between 5,202.7 and 5,578.4 from March through December 2025, suggesting the segment has settled into a lower, more stable baseline after the anomalous 2024 peak.

Traffic Channel Mix and Organic Search Dependency

The channel composition for January 2026 reveals a segment that is overwhelmingly reliant on organic search. SEO traffic accounts for 95.7% of total visits (5,450,670 out of 5,695,230 total visits), while paid search contributes just 0.5% (29,749 visits) and organic social adds 3.6% (206,508 visits). Paid social represents a minimal 0.1% (8,303 visits). This extreme concentration in organic search creates structural vulnerability—a risk underscored by the segment's organic search traffic declining -8.9% year-over-year. With virtually no meaningful investment in paid channels to offset organic losses, stores in this segment have limited levers to compensate when search algorithm changes or increased SERP competition erode their unpaid visibility. The near-absence of paid search spend (0.5%) suggests that Canadian Home and Garden retailers are either operating on tight margins that preclude paid acquisition or have historically relied on strong organic rankings that are now showing signs of erosion.

Revenue Trends and Traffic-to-Revenue Relationship

Average store revenue in January 2026 reached $82,021.00, which is -13.0% below the January 2025 figure of $94,189.48 and represents a continuation of a downward revenue trend that began after the 2024 autumn peak. That peak saw average monthly revenue reach $144,343.73 in October 2024, after which revenue declined steadily through 2025. Notably, even during the flat 2025 traffic period, revenue remained relatively compressed—May through November 2025 averaged approximately $86,800 per month—suggesting that conversion rates or average order values may not be compensating for the reduced traffic volumes. The relationship between traffic and revenue has also become less efficient: in October 2024, the segment generated roughly $15.75 in average revenue per visit unit, whereas in January 2026 that implied ratio has declined, pointing to either softer consumer intent, increased price sensitivity among Canadian home and garden shoppers, or a less commercially engaged traffic mix arriving through organic search channels.

Organic Search Traffic Trends

Canadian Home and Garden e-commerce stores recorded an average SEO traffic of 5,186.18 sessions in January 2026, reflecting a year-over-year decline of -8.9% in organic search traffic and -8.7% in organic SERP visibility. This pullback is particularly notable when contrasted with the sector's peak performance in late 2024: average SEO traffic reached 9,118.58 in November 2024 before dropping sharply through the first half of 2025. By March 2025, average organic traffic had already fallen to 5,276.09—nearly matching January 2024 baseline levels of 5,233.70—and the segment has remained range-bound between approximately 5,030 and 5,280 for the remainder of 2025 and into January 2026.

The loss of the autumn 2024 surge is the most consequential factor shaping this decline. September and October 2024 saw average SEO traffic spike to 8,597.84 and 9,115.57 respectively, likely driven by seasonal demand for home renovation and garden preparation. Those gains were not replicated in 2025: September 2025 came in at 5,120.71 and October 2025 at 5,082.33, representing year-over-year drops of approximately -40.4% and -44.3% for those individual months. SEO also dominates the traffic mix across the segment, consistently accounting for well over 95% of total visits throughout the observed period, underscoring how heavily these stores depend on organic discovery.

Domain Authority Under Pressure

Average PageRank for the segment stands at 2.06 in January 2026, a year-over-year contraction of -13.4%. This erosion follows a brief recovery period in mid-to-late 2025—PageRank climbed from a trough of 2.39 in May 2025 to a local high of 2.88 in September 2025—before sliding back to 2.06 by January 2026. The downward trajectory in domain authority aligns closely with the broader organic traffic decline and suggests that these stores are losing relative search credibility, making it harder to recapture the high-volume positions they held in autumn 2024.

The size distribution of the segment reinforces the concentration challenge: 1,048 stores sit in the under-50k monthly traffic tier, while only 3 reach the 100k–250k band and just 1 exceeds 250k. This means the overall averages are heavily weighted by a large base of lower-authority, lower-traffic properties, and a small number of high-performers exert outsized influence on the segment benchmarks.

Backlink Growth Contradicts Authority Metrics

Despite declining PageRank, referring domain and backlink volumes have surged dramatically over the past year. Average backlinks grew from 1,638.00 in October 2024 to a peak of 27,561.97 in August 2025, before settling at 14,734.46 in January 2026—still nearly nine times the October 2024 level. Average referring domains followed a similar trajectory, rising from 86.14 in October 2024 to a high of 692.40 in July 2025 before moderating to 407.23 in January 2026.

The divergence between rapidly growing backlink volume and falling PageRank and organic traffic suggests that link quality, rather than quantity, is the limiting factor. Many of the newly acquired backlinks may originate from low-authority or topically irrelevant sources that search engines discount or penalize. For stores in this segment, the priority should shift from link volume acquisition toward earning links from established, topically relevant Canadian home and garden publications, trade associations, and local media—sources with genuine authority that translate raw backlink counts into measurable ranking gains.

Paid Search Investment Drops Sharply Year-Over-Year

Canada's Home and Garden e-commerce segment entered January 2026 with average paid search spend of $165.72, representing a -72.1% decline in paid costs year-over-year. This steep contraction is matched by a -52.1% drop in paid search traffic over the same period, suggesting that reduced investment is translating directly into diminished visibility. The January 2026 figure continues a downward trend from the segment's recent peak of $459.89 in January 2025, with only a brief October–November 2025 recovery ($386.62 and $408.59, respectively) interrupting the slide—a pattern likely tied to seasonal promotional activity ahead of the holiday period.

Paid search traffic tells a similar story. In January 2026, average paid search traffic reached 178.14 sessions, representing just 2.2% of total site traffic. This compares unfavorably to the same month one year prior, when paid search contributed 3.6% of total traffic (331.20 sessions). The segment's paid search share peaked at 10.2% in April 2024 before entering a prolonged decline, indicating that stores have been systematically pulling back from Google Ads investment throughout the past two years.

Google Ads Adoption Remains Low; Meta Nearly Absent

Only 21.2% of stores in the Canada Home and Garden segment ran Google Ads at any point in the past year, and just 15.8% were active in the most recent month. These adoption rates highlight that paid search remains a minority channel even among stores that have experimented with it—implying that a large share of the segment relies almost exclusively on organic or direct traffic to drive visitors.

Meta Ads participation is effectively negligible, with just 0.13% of stores active this year and 0.14% active last month. This near-zero adoption suggests that social paid media has not gained meaningful traction within the segment, whether due to product category fit, budget constraints, or a preference for other acquisition channels.

Segment Spend Trails Global Benchmarks Significantly

When benchmarked against global averages, Canada's Home and Garden stores are investing considerably less across all paid media dimensions. Google Ads spend averaged $139.15 for the segment in the most recent period, sitting at just 57.3% of the global average of $242.95—a gap of more than $100 per store. Total paid media spend averaged $511.14, which is 55.1% of the global average of $928.11, meaning Canadian Home and Garden stores are spending roughly half of what comparable stores invest globally.

Meta Ads spend offers a somewhat closer comparison at 89.1% of the global average ($2,553.62 vs. $2,866.26), though with so few stores actually running Meta campaigns, this figure reflects a very small active base rather than broad segment behavior. Taken together, the data points to a segment that is either underinvesting in paid acquisition relative to global peers or actively deprioritizing performance marketing in favor of lower-cost channels—a strategic posture that, given the parallel traffic declines, may warrant reassessment heading into the spring Home and Garden selling season.

Instagram Remains the Dominant Organic Social Channel

Instagram continues to serve as the primary social traffic driver for Canadian Home and Garden e-commerce stores, delivering an average of 235.63 visits in January 2026. While this represents a pullback from the May 2025 peak of 379.96 visits, Instagram's share of total traffic has held relatively stable, ranging between 3.5% and 5.3% across the tracked period and sitting at 4.2% in the most recent month. Posting cadence has shown modest improvement, with stores averaging 2.42 posts per week in January 2026, up from 2.36 in December 2025—a +2.1% month-over-month increase. Follower base distribution skews heavily toward smaller accounts: 549 stores fall under the 10k follower threshold, compared to just 217 in the 10k–50k range, 48 in the 50k–100k range, 20 in the 100k–250k range, and 13 with over 250k followers. This concentration at the lower end of the follower spectrum helps explain the segment's modest average engagement rate of 0.016%, as smaller accounts typically generate lower absolute traffic volumes despite sometimes achieving higher relative engagement.

TikTok Traffic Grows from Near Zero but Remains a Minor Channel

TikTok has evolved from a negligible source into a measurable, if still modest, traffic contributor over the past year. In January 2025, average TikTok traffic stood at just 1.71 visits per store; by July 2025 it had surged to 161.71 visits, before stabilizing in the 70–85 visit range through the final months of the year. January 2026 recorded 70.26 average TikTok visits, representing a consistent 0.8% share of total traffic—unchanged from the preceding four months. Weekly upload frequency dipped slightly, from 1.50 uploads per week in December 2025 to 1.47 in January 2026, a -2.7% decline. The overall posting average across all social platforms sits at 2.73 posts per week, suggesting that TikTok activity supplements rather than displaces Instagram efforts. The mid-2025 TikTok traffic spike, coinciding with the July peak of 161.71 visits against a backdrop of elevated total traffic of 20,064.69, may reflect viral content moments rather than sustained channel investment—a pattern common in the home décor and gardening content space.

Organic Social Traffic Trending Upward Through Q4 and Into 2026

The most encouraging trend in this segment is the steady, compounding growth of broader organic social traffic. Starting from a near-zero baseline of 0.01 average visits in January 2025, organic social traffic reached 196.49 average visits in January 2026—representing organic social's share climbing from effectively 0.0% to 3.6% of total traffic over twelve months. Month-over-month momentum has been consistent: August 2025 recorded 89.58 visits (1.7% share), September reached 120.10 (2.3%), October 139.59 (2.6%), November 160.63 (3.1%), December 178.10 (3.2%), and January 2026 achieved the period high of 196.49 (3.6%). This uninterrupted upward trajectory through a period when total traffic remained relatively flat—hovering around 5,200–5,600 average visits per store—indicates that the share gains are genuine rather than a byproduct of overall traffic swings. For Canadian Home and Garden stores, this trajectory points to increasing content maturity and algorithmic reach, with meaningful room for growth given how recently organic social emerged as a channel within the segment.

Lighthouse Performance Signals Remain Under Pressure

Canadian Home and Garden e-commerce stores recorded an average Lighthouse Performance score of 52.0 in January 2026, a marginal decline from 52.1 the previous month — effectively flat (0% change). While the month-over-month movement is negligible, a score hovering just above 50/100 signals that page speed and core web vitals remain a persistent structural weakness for this segment. Stores in this category are likely competing against large-format retailers with significant infrastructure investment, making performance parity difficult to achieve at scale. Accessibility scores held steady at 85.7, up slightly from 85.7 the prior month, suggesting incremental but consistent improvements in usability standards across the segment.

The near-stagnant performance trajectory indicates that optimization efforts — if underway — are not yet producing measurable gains. For a category where product pages are often image-heavy (furniture, outdoor equipment, décor), rendering speed is particularly critical to reducing bounce rates and supporting conversion.

SEO Scores Show Stability at a High Baseline

The average Lighthouse SEO score for January 2026 came in at 92.4/100, essentially unchanged from 92.4 the previous month (0% change). This is a notably strong result and suggests that Canadian Home and Garden stores have invested meaningfully in on-page SEO fundamentals — meta tags, structured data, crawlability, and mobile indexing signals are likely well-maintained across the segment. Sustaining a score above 90 at scale is a positive indicator that technical SEO hygiene is treated as a baseline standard rather than an afterthought.

The consistency of this score month-over-month further implies that SEO configurations are stable and not subject to frequent disruptive changes — a sign of operational maturity in how these stores manage their digital storefronts.

Catalogue Size and Pricing Reflect a Fragmented Merchant Landscape

SKU distribution across Canadian Home and Garden stores reveals a heavily skewed catalogue profile. The largest cohort — 511 stores — carries between 0 and 250 SKUs, while 303 stores fall in the 251–500 range. Mid-tier catalogues of 501–1,000 SKUs account for 127 stores, and only 36 stores operate with more than 2,500 SKUs. This distribution suggests the segment is dominated by smaller, more specialized merchants rather than broad-assortment retailers.

Average product pricing has shown notable volatility over the past several months. After peaking at $786.73 in September 2025, prices dropped sharply to $452.31 in November 2025 before rebounding strongly to $712.55 in December and continuing upward to $734.77 in January 2026 — a +2.8% increase month-over-month. February 2026 shows a pullback to $668.46, a -9% decline from January's peak. The September and December spikes likely reflect seasonal catalogue shifts toward higher-ticket items such as heating solutions, holiday décor, and premium furnishings. The January elevation may reflect post-holiday inventory recalibration toward durable, higher-margin goods. Overall, the six-month average pricing trajectory points to a segment that skews toward considered, higher-value purchases rather than impulse or low-cost commodity products — consistent with the Home and Garden category's typical consumer behaviour patterns.