Saturday, October 20, 2007

Canadian Retailers Beginning to Lower Prices


As many of my Canadian readers no doubt know, the Canadian dollar has been doing amazing lately, and is presently valued more than the US dollar. According to the Bank of Canada at the time of this posting, $1.00 (Can) is the equivalent of $1.0376 (US), and every Canadian's biggest gripe is that retailers were not matching/lowering prices, and we've essentially been getting ripped off.

In today's Saturday Star newspaper, the front page has an article entitled "Retailers put a price on parity," and in it, the article describes that both Zellers and Wal-Mart are lowering and matching prices. While Zellers has lowered costs on everything from diapers to digital cameras, more than 250 items, Wal-Mart has higher profile items, like video games, priced at US cost or less.

For example, Halo 3, originally selling for $69.99, is now selling for $59.83, slightly cheaper than the US cost of $59.99. I visited a Wal-Mart today and confirmed that the Saturday Star's article is indeed correct.

This is great news as more stores will ultimately be forced to drop prices to compete, and we, the Canadian consumer, will be able to purchase great products for even less, which will in turn mean that we're all richer than we thought!

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