Exchange Rate killing you?

OMG I didn't realize there are so many fees in your place Ah, not so different from mine. C'mon people, this is just a doll.

 

Yeah it's a lot to factor in. Last year I foolishly bought myself some plushies from Hong Kong... and ended up paying a good £25 extra in fees to recieve them. I was SO annoyed, they were my birthday present to myself and I was MAD.
It's the £13 Parcelforce "handling fee" I object so much to. £13 is a heck of a lot for rubber stamping a piece of paper.

 

The Canadian dollar is so bad now.... but I get paid in USD all the time (I do commissions online) and all my spare dolly money comes from part of that... so it's not bad personally. Plus when I switch it to Canadian I ended up with quite a bit more. ^^; But I feel for anyone stuck using CAD to pay for items in USD.

 

we not only have lousy currency exchange just now in canada, but our shipping costs are one of the most expensive for anywhere (and they do a terrible job and still have the nerve to threaten to go on strike again next month!) i try to sell stuff in us dollars to fund my doll purchases, it keeps me from losing out so much to the currency exchange, but our shipping from here is so expensive i either can't sell stuff or lose a lot by subsidizing the cost.

 

This just happened to me. I was going to order my first doll direct from Fiaryland but when it all came out it was more then 700 so I've gone for the Adoption option still though, how can we even afford this hobby?!

 

With the exchange rate going up, it means your closer to the $1000 threshold for import tax too

 

The CAD to USD exchange rate is absolutely terrible. I wasn't aware of how bad the Australian exchange was until now.

Why must exchange rates exist ; w ;

 

Yup

 

well with the gbp tanking fast and no certainty it'll recover any time soon (months? years? who knows! thanks England, thanks a lot) it's biting more than ever. Man, I knew I should have placed an order when the pound was worth more than a few non magic beans.

 

The Brexit has a lot of markets & currency dropping right now. I'm in the US and hopefully the dollar will stay stable, but I'm worried that the destabilizing effects of the Brexit will make ripples that cause another global recession.

 

I personally do most of my shopping on Japanese-based sites and therefore deal in JPY. Let's just say that their consistently inconsistent (haha) forex rates are unpredictable.

 

well we're currently at about 1.3 against the USD, which is really very low. It's enough to push prices up a fair bit more than is helpful. I'm not convinced it'll stabilise any time soon either. The rest of the world maybe, but I think we messed up our economy now and until we have a solid plan forward, we may as well be playing with monopoly money. *sigh*

Really messes with my budget for importing a few things from the US. It's now a good bit more expensive. I need to go do the proper maths but just glances at the prices quoted now, it's not looking good for the exchange rate.

 

Yeah the AUD was finally recovering against the US at 76c to the dollar, overnight with the Brexit we fell to 73c. The sterling is falling as well (9% in a night!). Maybe it's time for me to buy all my dolls in Sterling haha! The thing now is that Australia will be introducing GST to all purchases coming in from the 1st of July. I feel like I am running out of time.

 

Eugh gst is a pain. We have a really low VAT (same thing basically) threshold which is annoying. Doesn't NZ already charge gst on everything? I remember it being really really expensive to buy a lot of stuff, like clothes and stuff. Kids clothes are insanely overpriced, my sister is in aus and we sent her so much baby stuff because simple bloody baby grows were like $30 for one! It was mental. You can buy packs of 7 for like £5 here. You can buy shirts for £3. Clothes are crazy cheap.
Toys however aren't.
It's £20 for a playline doll now, yuck. But it's good in a way, the hike of playline toys over the past 8 years i've been collecting has made more expensive dolls not look quite so much higher priced lol. I mean, if I can buy a monster High doll for close to £30, why not pay £50 and get a hujoo or a Makie when they were still open? Why not if you're paying £50 for a doll, pay £100? Slippery slope hah.

I hope I get money and more money for my birthday next month so I can buy what I wanted before the pound falls more or something else happens to our economy. Eugh.

 

I am so glad to see this thread. I'm so frustrated with the CAD to USD exchange rate right now and really wish got into BJDs earlier! I'm both looking forward to my doll arriving but also scared of the sales tax / customs duties I'll have to pay! And it's so frustrating that there's no good Canadian BJD dealer that I can buy in stock items through!

 

I haven't bought a doll in over a year because of the exchange rate CAD/US it's just nuts. I enjoy those that I have until the exchange rate goes up to a more acceptable level.

 

It truly is frustrating! It's definitely one of the contributing reasons as to why I haven't bought many dolls for the past few years! The AUD was great a few years ago but then it just fell so drastically. It basically means I have to pay 1.5x the cost of anything in USD. It's really not fair. I wish companies didn't insist on having all of their prices in USD.

At least it feels good to rant about it with others suffering the same thing though.

 

The horrible CAN/US exchange is why, for the first time since I got into this hobby 8 years ago, I'm actually thinking of doing a layaway for a doll. I know layaway's aren't unusual but one of my personal rules is that if I don't have the cash on hand, I don't get the doll. This is to make sure I really want the doll passionately and have saved for it as opposed to simply wanting the newest piece of beautiful resin.

However, even with saving, as the above poster said, I need to save 1.5 times the listed US price in order to cover my bases and when you're already talking about something that's $600 or $700 in US cash, that becomes gasp-worthy in Canadian.

 

Yes....

 

As a born-Canadian-currently-American wanting to move back to Canada, I'm reconsidering that plan. ._.