Amazon.ca and the Canadian Shopping Myth: The Truth They Don't Want You to Know

Amazon.ca loves to present itself as the destination for Canadian consumers. Maple leaf in the logo, patriotic messaging in their ad campaigns — and yet… the reality behind the warehouse is a lot less rosy.

Canada Is Just a Delivery Address for Amazon

Despite tens of thousands of third-party sellers active on Amazon.ca, a large portion of the volume sold on the platform comes from suppliers with no real connection to Canada — whether it's resellers importing Chinese products in bulk, or foreign manufacturers now selling directly to Canadians without going through a local intermediary. A report by Enquête on Radio-Canada already documented this: more and more Chinese manufacturers are using Amazon to sell directly to Canadian consumers, bypassing local entrepreneurs who take on the product development, marketing, and all the risk.

The result: the small "Made in Canada" or "Canadian company" badge you occasionally see on product listings gives a false impression of how much truly Canadian inventory actually exists on the platform.

Amazon Copies Its Own Sellers — Then Undercuts Their Prices

This is where it gets downright infuriating. Canadian entrepreneurs who built a brand, developed a product, and invested time and money to break through on Amazon.ca have been undercut by... Amazon itself. The same Enquête report tells the story of an entrepreneur who watched Amazon buy his products directly from his own American distributor, then resell them cheaper than him — on his own product listing.

In other words: you build your brand, you do all the work to create demand, and Amazon uses its own sales data to compete against you on your own product, at a price you simply can't match. Canada's Competition Bureau has been investigating this type of practice in Amazon's Canadian marketplace for some time now.

So What Does "Buying Canadian" on Amazon Actually Mean?

In practice, it too often means:

• Paying an intermediary reseller who imports the same thing you'd find on AliExpress, with an added margin.
• Supporting an American giant whose profits don't stay here.
• Participating in a system where real Canadian businesses get crushed by the very platform that claims to champion them.

The Canadian flag in the logo doesn't change any of that. The real alternative is at kastor.club.

Kastor.club: The Real Canadian Marketplace, No Detours

Kastor.club was built for one reason: to bring real Canadian suppliers together in one place — no shady intermediaries, no disguised reselling of foreign products, no unfair competition from a platform playing both sides of the table.

Every product here comes from a real Canadian supplier. No copied listings. No giant swooping in to profit off the backs of local entrepreneurs. Just a marketplace that belongs to its community — not to shareholders in Seattle.

It's time to make the switch. Every order on Kastor.club is a dollar that stays in Canada, with real people from here.

👉 Discover the real Canadian marketplace at Kastor.club

FAQ

Are all sellers on Amazon.ca Canadian?
No. A large portion of active sellers on the platform import and resell products manufactured abroad — notably in China — with no real connection to Canadian production or design.

Does Amazon really compete against its own sellers?
Documented cases, notably by Enquête (Radio-Canada), show that Amazon purchased products directly from a seller's distributor and then resold them cheaper on the same product listing — directly competing with the entrepreneur who had created the demand.

Why choose Kastor.club over Amazon.ca?
Because every product on Kastor.club comes from a real Canadian supplier, without the unfair competition or diluted inventory you find on major American platforms.