I think the first thing I should do is make sure that each member of the committee receives a copy of the Industry Canada study on the state of retail in 2010. It's fairly recent. It speaks to the productivity of the retail sector in Canada, which has surpassed every other sector in information technology investment and supply chain investment. That includes, obviously, e-commerce, which we talk about in the research.
Our retailers in Canada, both international players and local players, specifically mid-size and large retailers, have been investing more than their U.S. counterparts in the last five years. Many of them, I'm sure you'll hear from other witnesses, are investing in or doing a lot of tests in mobile technology, which includes not only mobile payments but mobile marketing. The large retailers are investing in social media, interaction with customers, and customer management information.
We also saw a substantial increase in web business enabling technology. That means not just websites that provide product knowledge but websites that allow customers to interact with a company and purchase goods online. There's been an increase of 30% in the number of those sites within the medium and large retail market in Canada. There's been quite a bit of activity. I think often we don't realize that, because we tend to compare Canada with the U.S.