David Feldt Proud father. Entrepreneur. Builder. Catalyst. Accelerator. Guide.

Why do US companies think that Canadians are stupid?

I've been buying products and services online for more than 10 years and have bought clothes, books, airline tickets, hotel rooms, CDs, cameras, computers, jewellery, watches (... the list continues ...) from key sites such as Amazon.com, BlueNile.com, iTunes, BHPhoto.com, Apple.com, Orbitz.com and others.

Then, four years ago, I moved from New York to Toronto and discovered that most everything in Canada were significantly more expensive. After factoring in the weaker Canadian Dollar (at the time) and higher taxes in Canada, the prices were still 30% - 80% higher than they were in the US. So I decided I would continue to buy from my list of favorite US online retailers and have the products shipped to me directly in Toronto. After several instances where shipping took weeks and/or I got a wonderful customs bill from the lovely Canadian government, I decided to have products shipped to family and friends in the US and ask them to repackage the products and Fedex it to me. That was obviously a huge hassle for them and I had to find a new solution.

Over the past year, we've all witnessed the huge appreciation of the Canadian Dollar against the US Dollar. Today, according to xe.com, 1 Canadian Dollar = 1.05758 US Dollars (vs. US 68c four years ago.) So I decided to investigate switching to the Canadian version of these US retailers. Surely my favorite sites would pass on the benefits of the stronger Canadian Dollar to me, right? Read on ...

Today I went to Amazon.ca to buy "Mobilizing Minds" - the price on the Canadian site was CDN$ 36.95 (USD$39.07) excluding taxes and shipping. So, what is the price on the US Amazon.com site for the identical book? USD$19.77!! The price premium for me in Canada is a whopping 98%!

So, why is Amazon.ca not selling it to me at USD$19.77 = CDN$18.70? Why are they pricing it at CDN$36.95?

Pure profiteering is my answer - I went to Indigo.ca, and the price there was CDN$24.38. That's a premium of 23.11% above the equivalent Amazon.com price but still way cheaper than the usurious CDN$36.95 on Amazon.ca.

So, my dear US online retailer who has been so kind to set up Canadian sites with Canadian distribution, thanks for nothing!

(I used to be an arbitrageur in a previous life ...)

Recruiting the YouTube Generation

Check out this legal firm in Boston - they're a 100 years old and are using a very contemporary video strategy to recruit summer interns and new associates from leading law schools. They've taken real associate stories, edited them down to 30 seconds and used actors to tell their stories ... pretty compelling!

http://www.choate.com/careers.php

Read more in the New York Times.