Frequently asked questions
What is Buy Canadian?
Buy Canadian is a discovery site that helps you find products from Canadian Shopify merchants. We search the Shopify Global Catalog live on the first visit to a category or search. We do not maintain our own product database or cache images on our servers, so all data you see here is as up-to-date as possible. Your browser may keep a short-lived copy of a category you already opened so sorting, price filtering, and browsing back and forth do not query the catalog again.
Are all products made in Canada?
No. We search catalog text for “made in Canada” and the French equivalent “fabriqué au Canada” (and common spelling variants). We may show a “Mentions made in Canada” badge when returned product copy includes similar English or French wording. That is not verified manufacturing or customs origin for the product.
What you see on this site are items with available inventory, for sale from Canadian sellers who ship within Canada.
Who sells these products?
Each listing is sold by an independent merchant whose online store uses the Shopify platform. When you click through, you leave Buy Canadian and complete checkout on that merchant's store. We are not the merchant of record. Checkout, shipping, and policies are handled by each merchant once you reach their store.
Are prices accurate?
Prices shown here come from live Catalog data at the time of your search so are expected to be accurate. The merchant's storefront may show different prices, promotions, or availability.
In some cases, Shopify gives us the same product as sold by different merchants. The different offers are listed in order of price on our product details page. The option you select determines which store you will be taken to. This comparison shopping feature is determined by Shopify's knowledge of the products, not by this site.
Why isn't product X from store Y shown here?
In order to appear in a category listing here, the product must have the "category" taxonomy selected in the product setup in the merchant's Shopify store. If the category is missing in the product details, the item won't appear in any category here. It may still be discoverable using the Search option.
This site only displays products that are listed for sale on a merchant site using Shopify. If you want to migrate your existing store to Shopify from another platform (which will get your great stuff listed on this site!), we can help with that. Have a look at a recent store migration success story or simply reach out to discuss your project and see if we would be a good fit.
Why are the categories so broad?
The categories we show are determined by the product details set by the merchant in Shopify. It uses a fixed, hierarchical taxonomy with 20 top-level categories, which are shown on our home page. Some categories have thousands of sub-categories (i.e. Sporting Goods currently has 3080 subcategories) while others have very few (i.e. Luggage & Bags has just 37 subcategories). We have a post-launch enhancement planned to add subcategory filtering, so keep an eye out for more granularity on the category pages soon.
On the home page, categories are arranged by the number of products currently expected to be found, most products to least.
Shipping and returns
Shipping destinations, costs, and return policies are set by each merchant. Buy Canadian does not ship products or process returns.
Are you affiliated with Shopify?
No. Buy Canadian uses Shopify's Global Catalog API but is an independent project and is not affiliated with Shopify Inc.
Shipping outside Canada
The site currently searches a catalog locked to Canadian buyers and shipping within Canada. Support for other destinations is planned for a future update. If you are a Canadian (or someone who wishes to support Canadian business) living outside of Canada, let us know where you are and we will prioritize adding the option to "ship to" your country when this update takes place.
You may find that merchants of items listed on this site ship outside of Canada. We have limited the site to initially show items which ship within Canada, but that doesn't exclude the possibility that they might also ship elsewhere. It's worth visiting their store to take a look at their shipping policies.