Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Not getting ripped off

Now that the Canadian dollar is almost at par with the US dollar, Canadians are being gouged buy Canadian retailers again. A lot of the retailers are claiming that it's not their fault.  They're saying that it's their distributors and suppliers who are at fault.  I don't really care who's responsible for trying to rip me off.  I'm not having any part of it.  I have a credit card, know how to buy things online and will give my business to a US retailer who doesn't rip me off.  I had to buy textbooks recently, which illustrates the state of things.  Unless otherwise noted, all of the following prices are in Canadian dollars:


The College Bookstore was selling the Essentials of Respiratory Care for $103.95.

Amazon.ca (that's the Canadian Amazon) was selling the same book for $94.95.

Amazon.com (the American Amazon) was selling the book for $70.77 (US$65.63).




WTF? $103.95, $94.95 or $70.77!? I ordered the Essentials of Respiratory Care along with the Manual of Pulmonary Function Testing from amazon.com and only had to pay an additional "import fee" of $5.91 (US$5.47).

4 comments:

  1. Ahh, I should've thought to look on the American amazon store. I compared my school's bookstore with chapters & amazon.ca, and amazon.ca had the best price. Next semester...

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  2. I always compare. Sometimes the school bookstore is cheaper. Somtimes Amazon.ca has even been significantly cheaper than Amazon.com

    I've given up on Chapters.ca they always charge too much or take too long to deliver.

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  3. I just bought my anesthesia book on ebay for HALF of what the bookstore was charging. I am pretty damn pleased with myself.

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  4. Our books are too expensive to pay MSRP.

    No one cares that our bookstore doesn't have our PFT text. Everyone's buying it from amazon.

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