Forum Moderators: buckworks
It looks as though the US Dollar is going to tank badly from here on in. Up until now I've been eating it on the exchange rate because the American market is my largest segment, and most of my competition has not yet upped their prices. As the Canadian dollar has gone from 62 cents US to over 97 cents yesterday I'm finding it very hard to hold the line on pricing. Anyone else in this same boat and have any idea what the best course of action might be? My big concern is that surely a great many business's are in the same situation and are all going to jump their prices as soon as the competition does. This will cause a massive run up in inflation and crash the economy for us all.
Lovejoy
I have maintained my US pricing for the most part because I purchase products in US currency which I transform. My transforming costs have remained more or less the same because of higher volume.
I have been trying to increase my CAD sales lately by offering CAD pricing adjusted daily with the exchange rate.
I have setup Geotargetting to automatically display either Canadian Currency or USD currency. I may also have to do the same to GBP and EURO.
Most Canadian exporters to the US made substantial profit with the exchange rate. It was even difficult to sell to Canadians because of the high USD value.
Now that Canadians benefit from an increased buying power, maybe it is time that US based firms aim for exporting to Canada.
I have stockpiled since May because of the great US exchange rate. I have purchased inventory, machines and as many personal items as I can all made possible by the lower exchange rate.
Good luck!
Lovejoy
It is really two stages which are independant:
1- automatically Checking for exchange rate at the bank of Canada every day... several currencies are available put that in a database table and retrieve it as required.
http://www.bankofcanada.ca/fmd/exchange.html
You can make a fopen and insert into database the currency of interest every day.
There are a few php solutions on hotscripts.com also.
2- looking up IP in a database available for countries. The result is a two letter international code for country. Currency conversion page is found here for Bank of Canada
Database is available for free [snip]
This enables you to taylor web pages for specific countries like: Low shipping rate to UK or item Made in Canada - Item ships from USA.
or display relevant items for different countries. It is very practical to enable geo targetting.
Everyone knows that if you display canadian currency to a US buyer, they likely will not purchase.
[edited by: lorax at 12:51 pm (utc) on Sep. 17, 2007]
[edit reason] removed url [/edit]
The problem we have now is that our Canadian customers are demanding a better price for US goods. We paid for the goods several months ago, or even a year or more with a much lower dollar. So we cant lower our prices until we clear out the inventory.
Its not so bad if the currency rises or falls slowly. Its the sudden and huge jump that is causing problems.
Its going to par and maybe above par. Who would have guessed 5 years ago?
This going to cause lots of problems.
Lovejoy
Historically in 1864, just when it look like the south was going to win the American Civil War, you could buy close to 3 American dollars for every Canadian dollar. Fortunately I was not in business back then.
To be exact on July 11, 1864 you could buy $2.78 in American dollars for $1.00 Canadin Dollar, and it was on Par back in 1862.
This puts the volatility of the currency market in perspective.
At least it wasn't the Toronto Star. Many a teenage back was broken under the weight the Saturday edition of the Toronto Star. I believe there was a least a tree and a half in each one :)
P.S. Canadian Dollar now at 98.57
Lovejoy
I could be wrong on this, but maybe it's not necessary to price in US$ for American customers anymore? Most of them must understand that it's not a very solid currency at present, and Euros, C$, or various other stable currencies can be expected for pricing on orders outside of the US.
Of course, if that's the difference between getting a sale or not from US customers, I guess you should quote in US and just keep bumping it up.
Lovejoy
When I calculated the profit on the sale we barely made anything. So I immediately raised the price.
So that is where the problem is for us, Canadian made goods going to the US. We do not have that many items like that, luckily.
p.s. it is over .99 this morn. we are going to par real soon.
p.p.s. i delivered the Hamilton Spec as a kid, nice afternoon paper route back then
First time in 31 years.
Last time it was this high was when Trudeau was PM. And it had been pegged at .92 US for a long time before then. It was only over par for a few months.
Amazing to see this happening, eh?
Lovejoy
Shipping from USA to Canada by Courier - No Broker charges for anything under $20
Shipping from Canada to USA by Courier - No Broker charges for anything under $200
Shipping from USA to Canada by Postal Service - Canada Customs will do the equivalent of a full anal cavity search on your parcel, collect the GST and charge you a $6.00 service fee.
Shipping from Canada to the USA by Postal service. US customs rarely check parcels, and no duty or fees for parcels less than $200, however I rarely see them hold a parcel for duty for less than $500 in reality.
As you can see, as a liberal democracy, its strange that our border service is still run like if it was a facsist state.
Not really a level playing field when it comes to canada-us ecomerce. Good think im living on the north side of the fence.
As you can see, as a liberal democracy, its strange that our border service is still run like if it was a facsist state.
I fly back and forth to Jamaica every couple of months and I can tell you about that bunch. Canada "border services" is the least Canadian thing I know of. They seem to mostly take their orders from south of the border, especially since 2001. The RCMP are no different. I don't know how they get away with it.
</rant>
