« Is Santa Coming to Town? | Main | How is the flu pandemic affecting your business? »
Dollar Dilemma Déjà vu: Will 4Q 2009 be a repeat of 4Q 2007?
I wrote the first entry on this blog roughly two years ago. It was November 6, 2007 and media and politicians of all stripes were pillorying retailers, claiming that the soaring Loonie should mean lower prices in Canada and that consumers were being ripped off. So, here we are two years later and the Loonie is once again climbing to new heights. Will 2009 be a repeat of 2007?
This morning the Loonie stands at 96.55 cents US on its trip up the currency value scale. Not surprisingly, there have been numerous news reports on the subject of cross border shopping. But so far coverage of the issue in the media has been restrained (at least compared to November 6, 2007). For example, the Monday, October 19th issue of The Globe and Mail has two articles on the issue: Is the Canadian dollar overvalued? by Tavia Grant and How to score a cross-border deal with the high dollar by Dakshana Bascaramurty.
The comments attached to the latter article are particularly interesting. Naturally, there are those people who accuse Canadian retailers of price gouging and those who seem mystified about why an article that costs X in the US, costs X++ in Canada. However, there are also comments explaining the economic reasons for higher Canadian prices: economies of scale, duties, tariffs, etc. There is also some discussion on the wisdom of shopping local.
If the dollar continues its ascent, it will be interesting to see if the anti-retailer rhetoric ratchets up as we draw closer to the holiday gift giving season. Will reasoned discussion prevail or will we experience dollar dilemma déjà vu?
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://bloggt.gifts-and-tablewares.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-t.cgi/93
Lori Smith, , Editor-in-Chief
Lori Smith is the editor of Gifts and Tablewares, Canada's premiere gifts and tablewares magazine. Written for retailers of gifts, tablewares, housewares, stationery and home furnishing accessories, its objective is to help readers increase their sales and run their businesses more profitably by providing information on new products, merchandising, small business management, customer service, consumer behavior and industry news. The magazine is published six times a year by BIG Magazines, LP, a leading Canadian information company.
Search
About
This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on October 19, 2009 10:07 AM.
The previous post in this blog was Is Santa Coming to Town?.
The next post in this blog is How is the flu pandemic affecting your business? .
Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.