Hi everyone,
Here are the reasons why we have migrated towards the USD currency:
http://www.automatontoys.com/blog/
The first and main reason for this change, of course, is the recent debacle of the canadian dollar: since our opening, six years ago, we've made the business choice to actually 'shield' our customers from the exchange rate, even if it meant to actually loose hundreds (recently make that thousands) of dollars each time we were paying our suppliers.
That situation has put my business in jeopardy on numerous occasions, especially in the first four years of operations, to the point of seriously considering taking down the store. All our industry and niche market is rolling on USD: even our chinese suppliers (and their resellers) are getting paid in USD.
Granted, we've could have jacked up the Canadian prices. But even then, how to predict (
months in advance since we are uploading preorders months before the
actual release) what the exchange rate will be at the moment of invoicing such items. We feel that switching to USD was far from the best solution, and I was very reluctant to do so. But in fact, we had no real other options. Besides, as for Automaton goes, our real competitors are Americans and Asians. My small, family business, is pitting itself against 'giant megastores' that have, and I'm not exagerating on this one, 10 to 20 times (if not more) our actual annual business sales.
And speaking of our competitors: I highly doubt that any of them will stack multiple items and ship to Canada for 10$-13$US. Our
OOH system (Order On Hold), and the fact that we are shipping huge OOH boxes for a flat rate of 12.99$US, is still a competitive advantage that none of our competitors offer.
Unfortunately, I think that for some customers, the reality of this market is becoming all too clear, perhaps. Is this hobby has become an expensive one? Yes. Most customers still want proximity from the place they buy (a store based in Canada); still want to be able to stack multiple items to avoid multiple shipping charges; still want us to ship huge OOH boxes for a Flat Rate shipping fee (when our reality is that Canadian Posts are far from cheap, with each package leaving our warehouse costing on average 15$CAN to easily 28+CAN); five stars customers service with fast reply and providing missing/defective pieces on the items, competitive prices, etc.
All this has a cost.
I've never envisioned Automaton Toys to be the 'fast food' of imported toys. I'm rather setting outstanding standards that put us in our own category. At least, I hope I have achieved that in the last six years, with all the hard work and the toll this project has severely taken on my family, friends and even my health.
We haven't made this decision in order to
make more money to pile on a fictional mountain-of-gold we don't have
anyway: we've made this decision in order to
survive. And continue to do what we do best: offering the most enjoyable shopping experience to our valued customers.
Regards,
Mario and the team at Automaton
