Toronto Photography Meetup Group

I don't understand the vast price difference between items in the USA and Canada. It doesn't make any sense as some items are about on Par with what they sell for here, but others the price discrepancy is just unfathomable. I am looking tog et a screen colour calibrator. So I looked into a Spyder3pro. In the US, the list price is $169, and you can get them at most stores from $125-150usf. Here, you are hard pressed to find anything below $200, with the average being closer to the $240mark.

So, the Canadain dollar has sat around the $0.93-0.96 mark. Now it's close to $0.98, so given the exchange rate, the product should be at most $160~170. But again, we are held in contempt by retailers who want to make the mega profits and charge the 100% markup (assuming that at $125 the seller is making a profit).

I just have to say no, and will start buying everything from the USA. I don't begrudge a store from making a profit, but try not to make it like I am being taken to the cleaners.

Matt.

You're going to get a pile of stuff about supply and demand based on the market of a country with 300 million plus people versus what 35 million in Canada now - some of which I buy, but mostly I don't. There's no good reason, that I'd accept, for a product made outside of North America to not have the same value in the US and Canada. So the answer? Because they can. It'd be interesting to see the difference in profit margins between the two countries.

Camera equipment is duty free, just taxes. Make a trip to Buffalo and get yourself a mailbox from Mailboxes etc or whoever - $100US for a year. Split it with someone. Have your stuff shipped there - note this is not a PO Box so it does work. Books are also duty free and much cheaper in the US.

Not sure a screen calibrator classifies as Camera equipment. To that note some duties are stupid. Ordered a pile of stuff last wee from US for our store. It arrived with a bill for 18% duty. The kicker in it was the value they Assessed the goods at was higher that what we paid by a fair margin. 1 item was 142 actual cost in usd. I was charged 18% on $187.00.

**** economy and all the capitalist crap, let's get naked and make love to each other

Generally speaking, it is not the fault of the retailers with respect to the pricing differences between US and Canadian pricing. Pricing is usually established by distributors and or manufacturers.

The pricing that distributors and manufacturers set are influenced by many factors other than dollar exchange, some of which has been mentioned, ie scales of economy, warranty, cost of setting up shop, taxes.....

Unfortunately some distributors and manufactures use much higher rates when establishing pricing.

Using the excuse that margins are different between here and the USA again comes across as just anther excuse. If that was so then ALL prices for equipment and articles would fall under that same umbrella. Like for example.

B&H Photo is selling a Nikon 300s for $1519usf. The exact same camera here in Canada ranges from $1540~1570 cdn. That covers about the exchange rate.

B&H Photo is selling a Nikon Coolpix S520 for $99. The exact same camera from the exact same stores in the other example, are selling this camera for $220~240 cdn. A price that shows more than 100% markup.

Both these are Nikon cameras. You can't say that they are taxes differently. Just here they charge significantly more. So you look at the price history for this point and shoot camera, and statistically the USA has been well below the cost in Canada, and their price has constantly been dropping. In Canada, that $225 average price has been constant for the past year this product has been sold.

Inventory must have rolled over at some point, but its not that the Canadian dollar as dipped below the $0.90 conversion any time over the past year. There is no other explanation other than price fixing at an outrageously high price point.

/that is just two cameras. But it happens with so many items, where cost in the USA is significantly lower than here, for items that should be priced close to par. Lens filters come to mind.

It just sucks. I think PotatoEYE has it right.. just have sex and forget about it, cause the retailers are just sure doing it to you.

isn't that all we do up here anyway? drink, sex, weed, hockey

....but the question is in what order...

Weed before sex but never before hockey.

For many years, a friend of mine worked as a buyer for Henry's and I remember this little tidbit from our conversations.

Just to give you guys a frame of reference, in any given year, B&H Photo in NYC sells more Nikon equipment by itself, than Nikon Canada orders for all of its Canadian resellers.

And sells a lot back to those Canadians? Hmmm...

I still feel if they did not rape us...I (we?) would buy Canadian. I buy from the US on a regular basis. I have the luxury of traveling back and forth periodically. But my comments from the previous similar conversations hold. Studio equipment is stupid expensive here.

I just bought my third monolight. The cost of the 3 would have bought me one here.

My third light came with stand convertible umbrella and 300WS Strobe for around $240 US SHIPPED!

The guy at the border just waved me through.

I really like the guys at Merkle (my local store). But there is no competition. I feel the Canadian retailers do not try.

which means generally speaking, someone along the chain needs to pull their heads out of their butts

I honestly have no problems not supporting local retailers, esp the big names. Would gladly drive a few hours on a long weekend to do my shopping south of the border.

And if didn't and you had to pay tax, you would STILL come out way ahead in almost all cases

Not sure why this question keeps being asked, it is partially volume of goods (a big part), it is partially logistical costs higher in Canada per unit than US, partially how the retailer runs their business, and it is in partially pricing by manufacturer.

Once you work on the logistics side of a company that sells product here (Canada) and abroad, you will understand. As someone that works in logistics, and more recently worked for a beer company and now an electronics company ... the US volume slaughters Cdn volumes. So profit margin on an item in the US can be 4% and up here it could be 40%, and they'd still kill us on profit $ ... and I mean KILL, SLAUGHTER, DESTROY. So, with volume comes lower handling costs, lower shipping, lower warehousing, lower insurance, lower everything at the unit level. To truly understand volume in the US, let me put it in perspective. In 2006 Labatt sold more Labatt Blue in NY state then in all of Canada. With all the exporting to the US, they still only had only around 2% of market share. And you have no idea how much beer sells in just in Ontario in one week of the summer. Let's say one packaged size (a 24) in one flavour (light) in one type of package (glass bottle) can sell (when priced right during hot temps) over 50,000+ cases in one week.

Volume is king. An LCD manufacturer in one week at one retail chain in the US sold 5,000 units in one week of a 32" LCD individual SKU. For that item, that is almost 6 months worth of sales for every retail outlet in Canada.

Commercial real estate costs more in Canada than in most of the US, labour is cheaper in many parts of the US, gasoline is cheaper in the US, transport contracts are cheaper in the US. Many parts of the US don't required heated trailers for transportation ... and on and on.

Even if the Cdn dollar is more, Cdn prices should still be higher ... but companies know how customers could be for US shopping so they have to take a cut in profits to do so.

Come on parity.... I need a new lens..

Yeah but I was there for 5 days and there are no taxes on Photo equipment anyways.

There is no duty on photo equipment when you cross the border, however sales tax should still apply.

If you spend X days over the border you get $X tax free. So for 5 days it is something like $400

I think Canadian retailers buy from Canon Canada and the US retailers buy from canon USA. The prices are different for that reason and don't forget B&H, Adorama pprobably get a better volume discount that others.

A thread just started on DPR about this if you're interested:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1018&message=34839253

This question is getting tiresome ... I wish they'd do the research first before asking agrily. Why don't those people go lobby about real price concern differences, like gas prices. Its not like we have an option to buy it elsewhere. Just irritates me to no end.