[digital-audiophile]

Just my two cents.

The price differential does not sit at the level of the retail shop. The change needs to come at the manufacturing level.

If two of the exact same skimmer are manufactured in Germany and one is shipped to a LFS in Canada and one is shipped to a LFS in the United States with the dollar at parity and assuming that both stores have the same overhead and expected profit margin there should be no real difference in the price.

This of course should only apply to material that has been manufactured and shipped since the dollar has reached parity and it may take some time to ensure that the dollar does not vary from parity or near but in a years time I would expect to see prices on an equal footing. I know that we have to expect some differences on price based on different shipping lanes, duties and so forth.

Personally I have bought 99% of all my fish goods dry and live from local fish stores in my near three years in this hobby. I would persoanlly rather support my local retailer than even an online source like J&L. I have made a few purchases online but only becuase there were products I wanted that I could not find locally.