If you haven't been paying attention to the news in the past week, you might be surprised to learn that it costs around $1.25 to buy 1 U.S. dollar right now (or 79 cents US = 1 Canadian $). That's a huge reversal of what it was 6 monhts ago when the dollar was practically at parity.
For the moment we are holding the price on Graphic Novels and Manga at US Cover -but it's unclear exactly how long we'll be able to do that. So take advantage now - The savings may not be this good for some time, if the dollar continues on its path or even stays at these new old-time lows.
Our US pricing and low canadian dollar means Big Savings Right Now - but again, how long we can keep this up, we don't know.
The reason for the low dollar? Simply put, the Canadian economy and dollar value is affected heavily by commodity prices (things like oil,gold,etc.) and with Oil having dropped nearly 50% from its high last year and gold and silver down, plus add the fact that interest rates dropped again means that the Canadian dollar is/has lost ground. They say that the lower dollar will help exporters (Canadian manufacturers) but for us in the book business, it means books are becoming more expensive. Here's just one article on the subject:
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/story.html?id=7cf94d1c-e0f7-44f9-8317-e334f5d0e44a
