Some Magazines No Longer Listing Two Prices

This heats things up a bit in the price parity debate. Magazines are only listing one price on the magazines so you don't see the US prices. If the price was listed as the same # in CDN and US dollars then that would be a good thing. Regardless of which way the dollar goes you pay the same amount in your currency but I fear the opposite is true. By having one price they can list only the cdn dollar price in canada and the us dollar price in the us. Right now CDN is too high compared to the actual rate. The best thing to do is to list the two cover prices for various magazines on this site. I am going to start with a select few popular magazines. If you have suggestions of magazines I should list let me know by posting a comment on this article.

Futureshop is doing its part too.

I got a response from someone who pointed out that FutureShop is reducing prices
to reflect the dollar as well.

"In response, over the past 30 days, they've reduced pricing on over 1000 products in sundry categories. Here's the letter that ran as an ad in Canadian papers on Nov. 16."

Here is the link to the article:

http://www.futureshop.ca/marketing/big_dollar/default.asp

If you know of any stores doing this as well let me know and I will post them.
I noticed on the weekend that Rexall Pharmacy is honoring the us prices on the books they sell. You can email me at chrisw_88@hotmail.com or simply post the comment on one of the existing articles and I will approve them.

Wal-Mart is on board with cutting the prices based on Canadian Dollar Stength

So now Zellers and Walmart are giving in what about all those other retailers.
Below is the link to the article:

Wal-Mart Canada reports 'major successes' in C$-related price cuts
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5hP7SQAC9kdfcltnrkVkKEuBLR1Vg

Now its time to start pressuring the other retailers to match. If you notice the prices are too high go to Zellers or Wal-Mart and buy it there. Eventually they will all give in.

If you find out about other retailers dropping their prices to reflect price parity email me at chris@clinchportal.com and I will post it here. You can also post it to the facebook group and I will mirror it here as well.

Flaherty and Zellers on Price Parity Bandwagon

Two interesting new items today. Zellers is exprected to lower their prices on US products so they are the same price both sides of the border. Cudos for Zellers finally a reason to shop there.

http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/268757

The other interesting note is this buzz over price parity is finally hitting Mr. Flaherty and he is going to pressure retailers into lower prices. I guess they are realizing how much taxes they are losing with us going south of the border.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/10/20/flaherty-retailers.html?ref=rss

If you come across any of these stories let me know by posting them here. I will make sure it gets on my blog too.

Amazon.ca vs Amazon.com

As Gregory Forrest pointed out on the Facebook Group, Amazon.ca and Amazon.com are not offering price parity. We should boycott stores that do this or simply go to the .com site and send in a complaint directly. If we do either or both of these they will act.

Here are two examples that were pointed out:

Examples,
Kids in the Hall Megaset
Amazon.ca $216
Amazon.com $153

Mash Martini's and Medicine
Amazon.ca $279
Amazon.com $170

Thanks Greg for pointing this out. We need more posts like this so we are all aware of the problem.

Bridal and Beyond

Interestingly enough, I started this blog and I ran into an issue this weekend with Price Parity.

My wife took a trip out to Mississauga on Saturday to do some Bridesmaid Dress shopping. They found a really nice Dessy Style 2001 dress in Candy Apple Red. It turns out there was one in the store that was the perfect size, it was $99 and since the store had a no-tax sale on it would have been just that price or so the sales lady told her. They were impressed so they asked about prices for the other sizes, as they were custom orders, the lady said they would be $175 each. After my wife tried the one in the store on. The lady double checked an said they would be $239 each for the other ones. This large difference in price confused them so they decided they would look around and possibly return later. A simple web search for the dress showed that the dress was available on houseofbrides.com for $115 and since the dollars are equal that would be the price. Shipping would be under $40 so that would be $155 per dress shipped via UPS and that included insurance on delivery.
My wife's friend decided she would go with the dresses online for trhe other dresses so my wife and I drove back to Mississauga to get the one there as it was already the right size and you could not really beat $99.

Unfortunately, the sales agent was wrong about the sale too. It was only for items custom ordered as the snarky manager pointed out. So the $99 dress would cost $113.

I thought I would post this a someone looking for a bridal dress, houseofbrides.com has good prices an until the canadian bridal shops like this one adapt, I recommend boycotting them and shopping on houseofbrides to save you some cash.

If you have any examples of places not offering price parity or tips on places that are please email me at chris.clinchportal.com or post them on the wall of the facebook group.

Introduction

Price Parity is a big issue. For the past year our dollar has been growing but the US products still have the CDN price listed way higher than it should. This is a good opportunity for us to fight back and get back some of that money they really shouldn't have. If we list the items that are not price parity and we look here before buying things, looking for alteratives, it will force them to lower the prices.

The big area where I see this is with books. If you know of items I look forward to hearing them. Please post them on the Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5023599109 and I will add them to the blog.