You have to remember this is Canada. Compared with the US the market here is thin and therefore lacks adequate scale economies and competition (in all of Toronto how many serious professional photographic retailers do we have? and have you ever seen a computer store here to match an average "CompUSA"? Obviously business people don't think more would pay.). The so-called Free Trade Agreement we have with the USA is free at one level but not another. It did much to simplify intra-corporate cross-border transfers of goods and services, but at the level of the consumer, between the Federal Government and the distributors there remain substantial barriers to trade that these Agreements fail to capture so restrictive market practices prevail. This accounts for alot. Still and well, the combination of B&H and UPS is hard to beat - very healthy for this market to be exposed to that kind of competition, but the problems begin up-stream of the retailers with the distribution arrangements. On some items our retailers will have wiggle room to counteract, but for others they are squeezed on margin. In my youth I worked part time for a prominent photographic retailer in downtown Montreal. I remember well what our mark-ups were - about 40% on cameras and lenses. It costed the owner about 10% over cost to pay for the overheads, so the other 30% was split between discounts to customers and profits. On a 30% margin you can do that. These days such margins on much of this kind of equipment are a complete fantasy, so they make-up on other products and services where they are less margin-squeezed and less regulated by their suppliers - that's how it works, and it applies to much else apart from photo gear.
