The answer is very simple: lack of competition!
Our retailers are very greedy and use every opportunity and every excuse to increase their margins.
Exhibit A: Mad Cow Scare
So we had some mad cow cases in Alberta few years back. Of course, beef prices dropped a lot, many farmers were in trouble, etc. Meat prices in stores *ALL OVER CANADA DIDN'T CHANGE*!!!! Hmmmm, huh????
Turns out meat packers and processors had record profits for a couple of years thereafter.
Exhibit B: Toyota Prius
I had some arguments with ekpolk about Prius' affordability until I realized that whereas in US it costs around $24K (roughly speaking of course) here it is around $35K. Also used Prius cars are no better.
All other explanations about taxes and tarrifs don't work. First, I never heard a specific example of how much are these taxes and tariffs, only vague claims. Second, taxes and other overhead is always present, while Canadian prices didn't change much for the entire 50% jump in our currency. Shouldn't prices have been even higher in the past when C$ was much weaker if the difference is explained by overhead that was present in the past as well?????
No, it is simple a different retailing enviornment that creates bizarre distortions. As an example, I drove to Home Depot accross the border to purchase some shelving and other things. Most things were about 50% to 100% more expensive in Canada. Even when comparing stores from the same chain - Home Depot. How can Home Depot sell stuff so much more expensive between 2 stores less than 100 miles aparat! And that is 2 countries that are NAFTA members!
The bottom line is just stop trying to understand. I just placed an order from a US store. Simple drive down to US and/or order online.
As a final note, you can actually find better deals even in Canada when there is more competition, such as from smaller retailers. I ordered some DVDs from a smaller shop with a web site from Montreal. However, they are not well known. Seems the smaller more obscure retailes have better deals, while well known brands here have the worst prices.
Again, don't dry to understand it. Simply avoid big retailers as much as possible. When they loose our business then they'll start to behave, otherwise they couldn't care less.
P.S.: Ah, just can't stop sorry
The worst items are specialty things like specific camera batteries. My wife's friend didn't want to bother seaching and simply went to a major retailer for her camera's battery. They charged her around $50! Meanwhile my wife buys such things on eBay for $10 to $20 tops. There is some risk of course, but hey you save so much you can buy it multiple times and still save. So for specialty items like that or just harder to find things our retailers are simply m....f.....
