Warning: Rant forthcoming.
This week, U.S. retailer J.Crew has come under a lot of heat with the introduction of their Canada centric website. Up until recently, I take it, Canadian consumers have been able place online orders and pay “U.S. Prices” and with the Canadian dollar at par or better, its a good deal for Canadian consumers.
According to reports, however, J. Crew e-commerce customers in Canada would have to endure prices that were as much as 50% above those at its U.S. stores and on its U.S. website. Loyal J. Crew customers were outraged and the company has quickly backed off and will now ONLY charge about 15% more citing higher costs of doing business in Canada.
We have all been hearing for years from retail apologists that its more costly to do business in Canada than the U.S. and I do buy that, to a degree. Without any empirical evidence to back me up, just my own sense of reasonableness, I would concede that it’s 5% to 10% more expensive in Canada than the U.S. to do business. Hey, maybe even 15%.
But 20% or 35% or 50% …no way. I don’t buy it. (more…)
