Cheaper textbook with more powerful loonies

Parity will benefit students

CHELSE MCKEE, STAFF

Now that the U.S. and Canadian dollars are at par, will students be able to look forward to cheaper textbooks?

Lita Beyak, the manager of the University of Manitoba BookStore, said yes: that the BookStore has already lowered its prices on many textbooks and could lose a profit in the sale of American textbooks with the U.S.-Canadian dollar parity.

She says the BookStore, because of the parity, “anticipate[s] that [this year] is going to be difficult.”

However, Beyak could not speculate on how much profit the BookStore could stand to lose by pricing textbooks at dollar parity.

Some books that the bookstore has already reduced include The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton.

The BookStore advocates lower prices on American textbooks in Canadian universities, Beyak said, through organizations like the Canadian Booksellers Association and the Campus Stores Canada. She said she hopes that as early as January there will be a smaller gap between Canadian and American prices.

Regardless of the exchange rate when the publishing company suggests a retail price, the bookstores are given the benefit of purchasing textbooks with the exchange rate at the time of the transaction.

Barry Prentice, a University of Manitoba supply chain management professor, said that “presumably the [book] stores get the benefit of the [new] exchange rate, so they don’t necessarily have to go with [the] suggested price,” Prentice said. “Unless they have pressure upon them, they may choose to [charge more]. Nothing forces the bookseller to have to adhere to [a suggested] price.”

Prentice explained why textbooks are more expensive in Canada than in the U.S..

“It could well be that the textbook distributors operate differently in the two countries, and they have more economy size in the U.S., and, therefore, they may have different charges they put on for things like transportation.”

Lynda Laux-Bachand, an editor from Glamour magazine, a popular women’s magazine published in New York, explained that the magazine’s price is “more expensive in Canada because [it] cost[s] us more to send it there.”

Robert Warren, a director of marketing for the University of Manitoba, explained that textbooks are priced years prior to reaching bookstore shelves and the suggested retail rate for the book is based on the value of the Canadian dollar at that time.

“They’ll set the price for [textbooks] two years in the past . . . so all their revenue projections are based on a certain price that they set and that price was based on the dollar level at the time and, now that the dollar has gone up, you’d think they’d lower the prices, but you probably won’t see that filtered through for about another year or so.”

Since Canadian stores purchase the textbooks well in advance, the stores may be forced to sell the textbooks at a higher exchange rate than what they originally paid for the books.

“I don’t think anyone [two years ago] saw a dollar close to parity,” Warren said. “I don’t think you’re ever going to see books on par with the U.S.. Companies hate to give up all their profits. So what they’ll do is they’ll come down a bit but they’ll probably keep an extra cushion just because they don’t want to give it up. In one respect, they’re greedy.

“If consumers aren’t going to put up a big fight or aren’t going to go buy [books] from another source, why not take ‘extra profits’ as their motto?”

Gary Sran, UMSU president, said that UMSU councilors have not brought the price of textbooks to council for discussion.

Sran said that “[UMSU] is very aware that textbooks are very high and the costs are phenomenal and we brought it up at many of our meetings with the government and with both federal and provincial government.”

Robert Warren said he think that students will “probably see lower prices next fall.”

McGraw-Hill, a popular textbook company, plans to change their prices to accommodate the new parity of the dollar, according to senior marketing co-ordinator, Sayeeda Hussain.

McGraw-Hill is “adjusting [its] price and it should be in effect around November 15.”