Seems like the US Dollar is slowly strengthening against the loonie (I was facing a 1.03 exchange rate a couple of months ago and now it's slowly creeped back up to 1.07-1.08).  While I welcome this move as it makes it even more profitable selling back to the Americans, it really sucks for us as it's going to be more and more expensive buying Lego from the states and reselling back to Canadians.. *sigh*

 

Thoughts?

Yes, the US dollar has been strengthening across the board.  It does make importing a bit more expensive and I'll be trying to pass some of that increase on to buyers if the market will allow it.  Though that is hard to do fully, so inevitably profits might be shaved a little, or you could hold for a little longer to take a few months extra growth before selling.

Does anyone exploit the differences pretty regularly?

 

I guess furthermore, does anyone sell sets into another market where they are worth more?

Does anyone exploit the differences pretty regularly?

 

I guess furthermore, does anyone sell sets into another market where they are worth more?

 

It makes it easier to sell in Canada if our purchasing power is high as there's more margin to work with. For example, I just flipped a Lego set I bought in the US for 48 USD for 70 dollars CAD at about a 5% exchange differential. If this was the early 2000s with the 40% ish differential I would've lost money. 

 

That's the funny thing about it all. As expensive as Lego is today in Canada (in general a +30% difference between Lego US and Lego Canada) there was a time when it was significantly cheaper to buy in Canada. lol... 

 

Hence my strategy so far is to buy as much as I can while I still have a strong Canadian dollar, because it definitely won't last once America comes roaring back. 

Does anyone exploit the differences pretty regularly?

 

I guess furthermore, does anyone sell sets into another market where they are worth more?

 

 

I think many people do this.  There are plenty of sellers on Ebay that just buy current retail sets in the US at a discount and flip them to international buyers making smaller margins, but I would presume decent profits over time.

Yeah, as a local Canadian reseller who only buys and sells within CAN, it's hard for me to beat prices of investors who buy internationally (like ph4tb0i).  So I don't even attempt to compete with some sets...just holding or expect smaller margin.  I use to plop whatever extra money I had into my US account (for trips etc.) but started doing it less since between new toys not much extra money leftover haha.   

 

*At least the BOC (bank of canada) didn't raise interest rates recently...some people would be hurting if rates went up even 0.10% if they are over leveraged.  Real estate transactions decreased in June but prices up compared to last June.  I was buying and listing last July-Sept and the market was extremely quiet, also depends on your price range too I guess. 

 

Get a rate locked in for 90days (or long as you can) ph4tb0i, Aug-Oct should be some deals in housing if the market is quiet again.     

*At least the BOC (bank of canada) didn't raise interest rates recently...some people would be hurting if rates went up even 0.10% if they are over leveraged.  Real estate transactions decreased in June but prices up compared to last June.  I was buying and listing last July-Sept and the market was extremely quiet, also depends on your price range too I guess. 

 

Get a rate locked in for 90days (or long as you can) ph4tb0i, Aug-Oct should be some deals in housing if the market is quiet again.     

 

At this point I really doubt I'll be locking into a mortgage any time soon. I am hedging more towards the side of housing prices remaining stagnant over the next couple of years as people work towards paying down their debts (or paying down their passively increasing debt if they couldn't pay it down during cheap interest times). Lego has slowly turned into me building a second business on the side right now as I'm starting to learn to pick and resell products other than Lego (major thanks to emes for some of his helpful posts on this as it really helped me build confidence in seriously starting an alternative revenue stream up rather than just sitting at my day time job), and locking into a mortgage would significantly reduce my capital to invest. 

 

I really believe we're starting to see the end of the Canadian dollar valuing at parity with the US greenback though. Once they start running full steam I really do expect us to be back at around the 20-30% differential mark (e.***. 1.3 CAD --> 1 USD). Our biggest economic output right now is housing, which scares me a lot as it's really not sustainable at these levels and it doesn't help bring wealth into Canada (i.e. it doesn't seem like we're selling to anybody besides ourselves). 

 

Europe, on the other hand I do not have as much faith in a quick rebound, so let's hope Amazon UK keeps on churning out 'dem deals! lol. 

 

Just my 2 cts though.