Sephardic-Male
Banned
ask them how is wasting gas money driving to shop in the U.S saves them money
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- Thread starter Jarrek
- Start date
ask them how is wasting gas money driving to shop in the U.S saves them money
Mot
Active Member
We just got our letter yesterday confirming our permanent residency on the same day the US dollar tanks. The price of freedom is worth the loss.
AndreaPalladio
Senior Member
True, but travel anywhere is a pleasure in and of itself, even if you buy nothing.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Congrats, Mot!
Who needs the U.S. anyway?
-U.S.
Who needs the U.S. anyway?
-U.S.
Zephyr
Active Member
Couldn't resist it, eh?
scottycameron
New Member
Canadians feeling fleeced by U.S. pricing
As our dollar hits par, consumers' association urges buy-direct tactics
September 21, 2007
Rick Westhead
Staff reporter
Gabriel Vaillancourt found the perfect solution to battle the icy winds that promise to chill Quebec's eastern townships this winter: a bulky down-filled parka with a fur-lined hood made by ski-wear supplier The North Face.
But one thing almost kept him from buying it: The 28-year-old Orford, Que., resident couldn't understand why The North Face was charging Canadian customers so much more than those in the U.S. In Canada, the jacket cost $399.99; in the U.S., it was $279.
Many Canadian consumers share Vaillancourt's frustration. As the Canadian loonie briefly reached parity yesterday with the American dollar, trading at $1.0008 (U.S.) before closing the day at 99.87 U.S. cents, consumer groups and customers say they won't relent in efforts to pressure companies to abandon disparate pricing policies.
A North Face customer rep first told Vaillancourt the difference was due to Canadian tariffs, and he pressed the company to elaborate. After he received no response to his second email, Vaillancourt contacted Adam Ketcheson, director of sales and marketing for The North Face, who responded: "You have to understand that the cost of doing business is increasing in Canada. Rents are escalating quickly, staff costs are increasing, and energy costs are increasing exponentially ... when the dollar was at 60 cents, Canadian consumer goods did not increase in price but rather manufacturers took much smaller margins hurting profitability. To a certain extent the last two years have been an opportunity to regain those losses."
Vaillancourt calls the email "BS."
"If companies can get away with charging Canadians more than Americans for the same product and no one says anything about it or does anything, then they're going to keep doing it," he says. "It's like anything, people are going to have to start a movement if they want things to change."
Consumers' Association of Canada president Bruce Cran said his 2,000-member organization is urging Canadians to consider buying goods directly from the U.S. – thus pressuring Canadian retailers to demand distributors reduce costs.
"We don't care about economics and crazy formulas," Cran said. "The fact is that customers here have been treated very badly for two years. It's a desperate situation. We've been skinned by companies as the Canadian dollar has increased and no savings have been passed on. We really aren't being given a choice. We need to be looking across the border."
Some economists, however, have said even if companies do change their prices to reflect the robust Canadian dollar, it would probably be another two years before the change made it to stores.
The publishing industry is another flashpoint.
Anna Choudhury, a 39-year-old immigration consultant, buys four or five books a month and is vexed when she looks at the back cover and sees how much less a U.S. customer would pay for the same book.
"They say Canada is a smaller audience and they have shipping costs but they're usually are printing one run, the same run," Choudhury said. "What companies have really done is a good job of convincing us we should be paying more. Look at greeting cards. You have a card here in Canada and it's not 30 or 40 cents more than the same card in the U.S. It's more like $3 more. We pay more because we're asked to pay more."
Hallmark Canada recently cut prices, the company said. "We are keenly aware of changes in the market and are continually looking at and analyzing our pricing," Smith Holland, Hallmark Canada's president, said in an emailed statement.
Kevin Hanson, president of Simon and Schuster Canada, said many Canadians are misguided about how much they're paying for books these days. Prices here, he says, have actually plummeted 25 per cent in the past four years.
The electronics industry is also under scrutiny.
John Maynard, 28, recently scoured the Internet for a new camera lens. The one he found cost $399 in the U.S. and $649 here. "It's crazy," he said. "I don't buy any equipment in Canada any more."
As our dollar hits par, consumers' association urges buy-direct tactics
September 21, 2007
Rick Westhead
Staff reporter
Gabriel Vaillancourt found the perfect solution to battle the icy winds that promise to chill Quebec's eastern townships this winter: a bulky down-filled parka with a fur-lined hood made by ski-wear supplier The North Face.
But one thing almost kept him from buying it: The 28-year-old Orford, Que., resident couldn't understand why The North Face was charging Canadian customers so much more than those in the U.S. In Canada, the jacket cost $399.99; in the U.S., it was $279.
Many Canadian consumers share Vaillancourt's frustration. As the Canadian loonie briefly reached parity yesterday with the American dollar, trading at $1.0008 (U.S.) before closing the day at 99.87 U.S. cents, consumer groups and customers say they won't relent in efforts to pressure companies to abandon disparate pricing policies.
A North Face customer rep first told Vaillancourt the difference was due to Canadian tariffs, and he pressed the company to elaborate. After he received no response to his second email, Vaillancourt contacted Adam Ketcheson, director of sales and marketing for The North Face, who responded: "You have to understand that the cost of doing business is increasing in Canada. Rents are escalating quickly, staff costs are increasing, and energy costs are increasing exponentially ... when the dollar was at 60 cents, Canadian consumer goods did not increase in price but rather manufacturers took much smaller margins hurting profitability. To a certain extent the last two years have been an opportunity to regain those losses."
Vaillancourt calls the email "BS."
"If companies can get away with charging Canadians more than Americans for the same product and no one says anything about it or does anything, then they're going to keep doing it," he says. "It's like anything, people are going to have to start a movement if they want things to change."
Consumers' Association of Canada president Bruce Cran said his 2,000-member organization is urging Canadians to consider buying goods directly from the U.S. – thus pressuring Canadian retailers to demand distributors reduce costs.
"We don't care about economics and crazy formulas," Cran said. "The fact is that customers here have been treated very badly for two years. It's a desperate situation. We've been skinned by companies as the Canadian dollar has increased and no savings have been passed on. We really aren't being given a choice. We need to be looking across the border."
Some economists, however, have said even if companies do change their prices to reflect the robust Canadian dollar, it would probably be another two years before the change made it to stores.
The publishing industry is another flashpoint.
Anna Choudhury, a 39-year-old immigration consultant, buys four or five books a month and is vexed when she looks at the back cover and sees how much less a U.S. customer would pay for the same book.
"They say Canada is a smaller audience and they have shipping costs but they're usually are printing one run, the same run," Choudhury said. "What companies have really done is a good job of convincing us we should be paying more. Look at greeting cards. You have a card here in Canada and it's not 30 or 40 cents more than the same card in the U.S. It's more like $3 more. We pay more because we're asked to pay more."
Hallmark Canada recently cut prices, the company said. "We are keenly aware of changes in the market and are continually looking at and analyzing our pricing," Smith Holland, Hallmark Canada's president, said in an emailed statement.
Kevin Hanson, president of Simon and Schuster Canada, said many Canadians are misguided about how much they're paying for books these days. Prices here, he says, have actually plummeted 25 per cent in the past four years.
The electronics industry is also under scrutiny.
John Maynard, 28, recently scoured the Internet for a new camera lens. The one he found cost $399 in the U.S. and $649 here. "It's crazy," he said. "I don't buy any equipment in Canada any more."
billy corgan
Active Member
I’m posting this from Pennsylvania. We just purchased our second US vehicle for the family (saved $10,000 and no duty) and a bunch of clothing (20-30% cheaper than in TO). With no tax on clothing and vehicles, parity and cheap gas it is definitely worth taking a trip across the border.
scottycameron
New Member
Prices up to 24% higher north of border: Study
September 21, 2007
Tony Wong
Business reporter
Canadians are paying up to 24 per cent more for a basket of assorted goods purchased at home as opposed to buying the same items in the United States, says a study by a Canadian bank.
"The unprecedented 60 per cent surge in the Canadian dollar over the past five years has produced plenty of pain for the country's manufacturing base, yet has created very little joy for the average consumer," Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Nesbitt Burns, said in a report yesterday.
``Canadian prices on many directly comparable goods have been achingly slow to respond to the major shift in the exchange rate."
It would cost you 34 per cent more to buy a kid's chair at Pottery Barn, or 17 per cent more to buy an Acura MDX sport-utility vehicle in Canada, according to BMO Nesbitt Burns, the Bank of Montreal's stock brokerage. And that's using an 89 cent (U.S.) average exchange rate. The difference would be more dramatic at par.
The study adds fuel to the crusade led over the last several years by Bruce Cran, president of the Consumers' Association of Canada for lower prices in Canada.
Cran says he has heard a gamut of "excuses" from retailers why prices aren't lower, including the fact that Canada is a different market and there are different economies of scale north of the border.
"We all know that now that you're hitting the magic benchmark of parity, you don't have to be a brain surgeon that a similar object in the United States should also be of equal value," Cran said. "But we know that isn't going to happen."
Cran says retailers and manufacturers have had two years of a rising dollar to adjust prices, but the price differences, from books to autos, are an insult. "I think it's plain flat-out gouging the consumer."
Consumers should protest by buying where it's cheapest – including in the U.S., he said.
``This is a market economy, and if prices stay high on this side of the border, then as a consumer advocate, I say go somewhere else until prices come down here."
Porter says it is unrealistic to expect prices to adjust instantly to a currency move and there has been some "fractional narrowing" of prices over the past three months.
Canadians and Americans for example, pay about the same for a cup of Tim Hortons coffee and Apple iPods, but the economist says these are largely exceptions.
Meanwhile, with the ease of shopping on the Internet, companies such as eBay are pushing the fact that Canadians don't have to drive anywhere to take advantage of the higher dollar.
Data released by eBay Canada yesterday show sales of items priced in U.S. dollars are up dramatically.
In the year ending in August 2007, unit sales of goods priced in U.S. dollars rose by more than 11 per cent on eBay's Canadian site compared with a year earlier, spokesperson Alexandra Brown said.
Clothing, electronics, toys and jewellery are some of the popular products bought by Canadians in the U.S. And big-ticket items such as cars are likely to gain in popularity as well.
A report by consultant Dennis DesRosiers this week says the difference in prices are particularly acute in the luxury automobile market, where luxury sports cars cost an average $13,694 more, while large SUVs are about $9,153 more expensive in Canada than in the U.S. after the exchange rate is taken into consideration. However, DesRosiers says the market is adjusting and prices are narrowing.
September 21, 2007
Tony Wong
Business reporter
Canadians are paying up to 24 per cent more for a basket of assorted goods purchased at home as opposed to buying the same items in the United States, says a study by a Canadian bank.
"The unprecedented 60 per cent surge in the Canadian dollar over the past five years has produced plenty of pain for the country's manufacturing base, yet has created very little joy for the average consumer," Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Nesbitt Burns, said in a report yesterday.
``Canadian prices on many directly comparable goods have been achingly slow to respond to the major shift in the exchange rate."
It would cost you 34 per cent more to buy a kid's chair at Pottery Barn, or 17 per cent more to buy an Acura MDX sport-utility vehicle in Canada, according to BMO Nesbitt Burns, the Bank of Montreal's stock brokerage. And that's using an 89 cent (U.S.) average exchange rate. The difference would be more dramatic at par.
The study adds fuel to the crusade led over the last several years by Bruce Cran, president of the Consumers' Association of Canada for lower prices in Canada.
Cran says he has heard a gamut of "excuses" from retailers why prices aren't lower, including the fact that Canada is a different market and there are different economies of scale north of the border.
"We all know that now that you're hitting the magic benchmark of parity, you don't have to be a brain surgeon that a similar object in the United States should also be of equal value," Cran said. "But we know that isn't going to happen."
Cran says retailers and manufacturers have had two years of a rising dollar to adjust prices, but the price differences, from books to autos, are an insult. "I think it's plain flat-out gouging the consumer."
Consumers should protest by buying where it's cheapest – including in the U.S., he said.
``This is a market economy, and if prices stay high on this side of the border, then as a consumer advocate, I say go somewhere else until prices come down here."
Porter says it is unrealistic to expect prices to adjust instantly to a currency move and there has been some "fractional narrowing" of prices over the past three months.
Canadians and Americans for example, pay about the same for a cup of Tim Hortons coffee and Apple iPods, but the economist says these are largely exceptions.
Meanwhile, with the ease of shopping on the Internet, companies such as eBay are pushing the fact that Canadians don't have to drive anywhere to take advantage of the higher dollar.
Data released by eBay Canada yesterday show sales of items priced in U.S. dollars are up dramatically.
In the year ending in August 2007, unit sales of goods priced in U.S. dollars rose by more than 11 per cent on eBay's Canadian site compared with a year earlier, spokesperson Alexandra Brown said.
Clothing, electronics, toys and jewellery are some of the popular products bought by Canadians in the U.S. And big-ticket items such as cars are likely to gain in popularity as well.
A report by consultant Dennis DesRosiers this week says the difference in prices are particularly acute in the luxury automobile market, where luxury sports cars cost an average $13,694 more, while large SUVs are about $9,153 more expensive in Canada than in the U.S. after the exchange rate is taken into consideration. However, DesRosiers says the market is adjusting and prices are narrowing.
nicetommy
Active Member
When Canadian retailers are purchasing items at a discounted price due to the higher buying power of the Cdn dollar now [against all currencies]... I most certainly expect them to pass on some of those savings to the consumers. Most of the companies are instead lining their pockets with the extra profits, and keeping prices the same. That's total bullshit on their part.
Prometheus The Supremo
►Member №41+⅜◄
we are down to 0.999097 
EnviroTO
Senior Member
But everything is made in China and the US Dollar can't buy as much Chinese yuan either. In reality I think a greater argument can be made that prices in the US should be going up.
afransen
Senior Member
Isn't the yuan pegged to the USD, so even with the USD's weakness, Chinese imports don't rise in price, at least directly.
Jdot
Active Member
Isnt it the goal of a company to make money? We arent living in a communist state here. Corporations, even small businesses, are in it to make money. They arent gouging customers out of more and more when their prices remain the same relative to consumers income. So what, these companies make more money. When the loonie drops down compared to the greenback, these companies have to eat up their losses.
Besides, not everything that is bought and sold in Canada comes from the US. If we start lowering the price on US goods only, noone will buy Canadian made products.
If the price of commodities is going to rise and fall depending on the value of our loonie vs the greenback, then how can we have any consistancy in the value of goods? This week a t-shirt costs $20, next week it costs $22, the week after it is down to $19. All this talk about companies ripping us off because prices havent gone down is getting ridiculous.
Oh, and the Canadian dollar doesnt have higher buying power compared to all currencies. It has a higher value compared to the US dollar ONLY. All other major currencies are doing much better than the US dollar. It still costs about $2.20 - $2.50 to buy the pound sterling, just like it was several years ago. The euro has pretty much kept on par with the Canadian dollar as well.
CDL.TO
Moderator
Just a minor point that doesn't really affect your overall argument, but the CDN$ has been doing quite well against many world currencies this month. The rate to exchange a pound sterling today is $2.02, the last time it was around $2.50 was in 2004. The long term trend has been that the Canadian Dollar has been gaining in strength, driven by oil prices and a strong economy.
ganjavih
Senior Member
That's true CDL, but the most significant reason for parity is the plummeting US dollar which has weakened against all other major world currencies. The exchange is 2.02 with the Pound? I don't remember it ever being that good. Or did it dip below 2.00 briefly a few years ago?