I picked up Halo 3 at Future Shop at midnight last night, and planned to save myself a trip and pick up the special edition DVD of Knocked Up if I could. Indeed, they had it ready up front to purchase along with the game, but the price was $27.99, and I remembered that Amazon.com was selling it for $19.99 US. I decided to not pick it up and do some more price checking online. But sure enough, Amazon.ca is selling it for $27.96!
Now before anyone claims this is due to import taxes or shipping, I’ll note that this price differentiation has been the same for years. Back when the US dollar was worth $1.30 Canadian, Amazon.com DVDs sold for 1.3 times as much as Amazon.ca DVDs. Now that the dollar is at par, they’re still selling at the same cost ratio!
Amazon.com won’t ship to Canada for free (.ca will if you order $35 or more worth of product) but a trial checkout shows that even with shipping costs the DVD would end up two dollars cheaper! I also wouldn’t be paying tax on the purchase — yes at the border it should get GST added on, but small items rarely get processed for that, so there’s another $4 saved!
Hey Future Shop and Amazon.ca! Start correcting your prices!
It’s the same with everything. Pick up a paperback book and compare the price between US and Canadian. I was looking at a pair of shoes today - $199 Canadian $149 American.
The exchange rate hasn’t been that bad for years now, but retailers haven’t adjusted their prices yet. Which means, for me, that I won’t be buying much of anything until I go to Boston at Christmas.
I don’t know that it’s that they don’t know that the dollars are at par, but rather that they are happy that their profit margin has gone up. It will take Canadians complaining about it for it to go down, but it will. There was a price adjustment on books back in August, I believe, but I am pretty sure that even then they still make Canadians pay more for the same books.
I’m in the market for a new bike, but I’m thinking that I am going to buy one in the States and just pay import duties on it because there is like a $200 difference for the one I want versus buying it in Canada. I’m all for supporting Canadian small-business over American any-business anytime, but that’s just ridiculous.
Charging extra for the exchange rate difference after there no longer is a difference is IMO gouging. We supposedly have consumer laws against that, but without some sort of class-action suite or an elected representative taking interest, I doubt much will get done about it.
My guess is that the prices are set at the distributor levels and that makes it awfully difficult to speak with your dollars and just shop elsewhere, at least so long as you’re shopping within Canada. And if you’re not, well I think Amazon would probably love to just close up shop on its Canadian branch, less overhead for them.