TechMonkey wrote:
The typical excuse is that retailers buy their inventory months in advance and so current prices reflect where the dollar was 6 months ago (or so).
It will be interesting to see what Lowes does since (presumably) they are purchasing new inventory to stock their new Canadian stores. Of course it's quite possible (and very likely) that they've already bought much stock over the past few months - while the dollar was a little lower. So prices will still be higher than at U.S. stores.
Hey we're Canadian. We're used to paying more and we don't complain (much).

As much as we'd love to see prices drop because of our strong dollar, it's important to realize that price is not solely determined by cost. Supply and demand will still dictate the prices that we pay in our market. If demand for a product remains the same at the old price, the price won't drop. All it does is allow the company to have more (much more) breathing room to lower their prices in response to our changes in demand or through increased competition. Changes in demand are most clearly relayed to the sellers when consumers find alternate ways to get their products (buying stuff in the states). They are not going to just lower prices to be nice to us. Competition will slowly bring them down.