Duty free sales at Canada’s airports and land borders reached C$419 ($382m) in 2013, up +5.8% on the previous year’s C$396m ($361m).

However the gains all came from the airport business where sales of C$273m were +9.15% ahead of those in 2012 while border shops suffered a marginal decline of -0.22% to $146m.

The data from the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA), and supplied by the Frontier Duty Free Association, show that, among the major product categories (over C$10m in annual sales) at airports, beauty grew fastest at +14.7% followed by food at +12.5% and fashion/apparel at +12.3%.

On the land borders, among the biggest categories (over C$6m in annual sales), the story was much more subdued with beauty growing +4.3% and food +4.8% with all other major product sectors declining. Among smaller categories, just two (both valued at C$2.66m) bucked the negative trend: fashion/apparel up +3.7% and accessories (up more sharply at +9.3%).