TORONTO — Whether preparing to put their credit cards through their paces or bracing for a brutal assault on their business's bottom line, Canadians across the country are preparing to usher in a new chapter in their relationship with U.S. retailers.
New rules governing the amount of money Canadians are allowed to spend south of the border take effect today, both firing consumers with enthusiasm and filling businesses with foreboding.
The changes --previously announced in this year's federal budget -- raise the amount of money Canadians are allowed to spend duty free during most cross-border trips.
In most cases, the increases are substantial. Canadians who could only declare $50 of purchased goods after an overnight trip across the border are now able to bring $200 worth of merchandise back home.
The limit has doubled from $400 to $800 for people on a jaunt of between two and seven days, while the limit for those gone for more than a week increases from $750 to $800.
Stephen Fine, founder of online shopping resource crossbordershopping.ca, said would-be bargain-hunters are keen to take advantage of the new limits.
Shoppers had begun mobilizing to pressure the government into changing the personal exemption rules, he said, adding the 24-hour duty free limit was a frequent bone of contention.
Fine said the government's new regulations have addressed those grievances, but have failed to eliminate the main source of inconvenience. Canadians are still barred from bringing back any duty-free goods purchased on a same-day excursion to the U.S., in sharp contrast to Americans who are entitled to $200 worth of exemptions when crossing the border from Canada.
"There's been a lot of disappointment about that from our audience because the majority of cross-border shoppers are same-day shoppers," Fine said, adding trips of less than 24 hours make up about half of all visits to the U.S.
The lack of a same-day exemption, Fine said, will almost offset the impact of the other rule changes on cross-border traffic.
Officials at some of the country's border crossings agreed the effects won't be easy to spot right away.
Matt Davison, spokesman for the Peace Bridge Authority that oversees the crossing from Fort Erie, Ont. into Buffalo, N.Y., said traffic is expected to remain steady despite the higher limits.
"Weekends are always busy times anyway," he said. "We don't expect to see anything out of the ordinary."
An employee at the duty free shop at Woodstock, N.B., who declined to provide her name, said store staff haven't taken any steps to prepare for an influx of cross-border dealfinders.
Even if it is business as usual for those who man the gateways to the U.S., some companies based in border towns say the government's new regulations don't bode well for their survival.
Marq Smith, owner of motorcycle shop Western PowerSports in Langley, B.C., said he's already lost thousands of dollars worth of business to cross-border shopping over the years.
Raising the duty free limits, he said, is a perfect way to take money away from Canadian business owners.
"We don't get the tax income as a country or a province. That's why I don't understand what the government is doing," Smith said. "Why would they take money out of their pockets, which of course is our pockets, by enhancing the ability to bring goods across the border?"
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has previously responded to similar charges by saying the exemptions had not been adjusted for inflation in decades, adding the higher limits would also free up customs officials to focus on security issues.
But Smith's concerns were recently echoed in a report from BMO Capital Markets. Deputy chief economist Douglas Porter suggested the new rules would lead to a spike in the number of cross-border shoppers, which would in turn accelerate the bleeding from a retail sector that already loses between five and 10 per cent of its business to U.S.-based rivals.
"Even at a conservative estimate of five per cent, we are talking over $20 billion a year," Porter said in his report. "If correct, that represents a real drain on domestic retail sales, employment and government revenues - a drain that looks (likely) to deepen."
Shopping police illegal parking caught on camera (From Watford Observer) - Watford Observer
Police caught on camera parking on yellow lines for shopping trips in Watford
10:00am Friday 1st June 2012 in News By Mike Wright, Chief Reporter
Police officers in Watford have been caught on camera for the second time in two weeks parking on double yellow lines to go on shopping jaunts to supermarkets.
The town’s force is facing a mounting outcry after officers were snapped on Friday parking up on a pavement in central Watford for a trip to Iceland.
The revelation comes just a week after pictures emerged of police illegally parking in St Albans Road to visit a Tesco Express.
The pictures have been branded “disgraceful” by one former police detective who said the abuses damaged the force’s standing with the public.
Watford’s Chief Inspector Nick Caveney has also come down hard on the practice, saying the officers involved have been reprimanded and prosecuted.
The town’s top policeman also described the two incidents as a “rare lapse” in the behaviour of his committed and dedicated force.
The latest picture taken by a Watford resident who saw officers park their car on the pavement in Albert Road South, a stone’s throw away from Watford Police Station, where there are double yellow lines.
The resident, who asked not to be named, said: “A patrol car pulled up with all four wheels on the pavement, two officers jumped out slammed the door shut and left the engine running, presumably with the keys inside.
“I thought they were going to make an arrest but they strolled over to Iceland to do a bit of shopping.
“They emerged from the shop 10 minutes later with a bag of shopping. I wouldn’t mind but it would be quicker to walk from the police station in Shady Lane than to drive there.”
A retired Metropolitan Police detective, Terry Hymans, who lives in Rickmansworth, said he felt there was no excuse for officers misusing parking privileges.
He also said actions like the ones caught on camera damaged the public’s trust in the police.
“I think it is disgraceful personally,” he said “I don’t think there is any excuse. This is part of the reason people have little regard for police officers today.
“It sends out a signal of don’t do as I do, do as I say. People will naturally assume they (the police) all do it and that is not true.”
The first pictures police parking on yellow lines was first captured by Abbots Langley resident Kevin Brown who submitted them to the Watford Observer last week.
He said he was “amazed” to see an officer park on a double yellow lines on a pavement in St Albans Road before spending seven minutes in Tesco Express and emerging with a shopping bag.
Following the revelations Chief Inspector for Watford, Nick Caveney said he was “shocked and surprised” to see the pictures.
He said: “As police officers, we have a very clear responsibility to operate totally within the law, whether this is when dealing with people we have arrested or while using a public highway in a police vehicle.
We have to set a good example to our communities and these incidents clearly do not. I am glad these have been brought to my attention and have since spoken with the officers concerned to establish the circumstances.
“Had they been responding to an emergency, illegal parking is justified and allowed, but this was not the case.
The officers concerned have been reprimanded for their behaviour and just like any other member of the public, are being prosecuted for their actions.”
“I’m very proud of our team here in Watford who work beyond the call of duty on a daily basis in order to keep our communities safe.
“These incidents are a rare lapse in an otherwise committed, dedicated and upstanding team.”
Comments(14)
TRT says...
10:02am Fri 1 Jun 12
Hornets number 12 fan says...
10:04am Fri 1 Jun 12
Taximan says...
11:07am Fri 1 Jun 12
AWatfordTaxpayer says...
11:34am Fri 1 Jun 12
One of the horses then did his business right there in the middle of the pedestrian walkway, a few yards from the entrance to McDonalds, leaving a load of manure for any lucky gardener passing by, or any unlucky pedestrian going by, if you get my drift.
I asked the rider, a policewoman, what she was going to do about it. She replied it was a job for the council and that she was going to do nothing about it. After chatting a while longer, the riders went on their separate ways, leaving the steaming deposit for the people of Watford to enjoy at their leisure.
As a dog owner, I would be liable to a £1000 fine for leaving a dog poo on the pavement. The police leave something altogether more impressive and just ignored it, and that outside a popular fast food restaurant.
It really is one rule for us, and one for them, isn't it? The policewoman was not embarrassed at all, it was really just a case of "tough luck, shoppers".
I took photos to send to the council, of the horse in the act and the mess left afterwards, but decided not to as I doubted they would care or do anything about it.
I must admit, I was very disappointed in the police for leaving this steaming manure in the middle of the street and doing nothing at all about it. The policewoman just tried to ignore it until I brought it to her attention, whereupon she dismissed it.
Taximan says...
11:47am Fri 1 Jun 12
Reg Edit says...
11:53am Fri 1 Jun 12
Reg Edit says...
11:59am Fri 1 Jun 12
garston tony says...
12:12pm Fri 1 Jun 12
TRT says...
12:25pm Fri 1 Jun 12
garston tony says...
1:05pm Fri 1 Jun 12
LSC says...
1:10pm Fri 1 Jun 12
TRT says...
1:14pm Fri 1 Jun 12
onlyonerodthomas says...
1:22pm Fri 1 Jun 12
Maclanx says...
2:57pm Fri 1 Jun 12
Drivers won't benefit from falling oil prices - Citywire.co.uk
The price of oil fell below the $100 a barrel mark on Friday for the first time since last October, but a weaker pound means drivers won’t save a penny at the pumps.
A barrel of Brent crude fell to $98, down from $120 a barrel last month.
The 2p saving drivers should see at the pumps as a result of lower oil prices, however, has been 'knocked out' because the pound has fallen in value by 4% since the middle of May, the AA explained.
'Had the pound remained worth $1.61 instead of around $1.53 now, further falls in the NW Europe wholesale price of petrol (taking it below $1000 a tonne for the first time since January) would have saved drivers a further 2p a litre,' the AA said.
Meanwhile, retailers have also yet to pass on the full 10p a litre saving from previous falls in wholesale prices to drivers.
Drivers have seen a saving of just seven and a half pence per litre at the pumps, Luke Bosdet of the AA explained. So while a weaker pound means they will not benefit from the most recent drop in wholesale prices, they are still owed a two and a half pence saving from the wholesale price falls seen since mid-April.
Yesterday the average price of petrol in the UK stood at 134.92p a litre, down from the record high of 142.8p seen in April. The cost of diesel, meanwhile, has fallen from 147.93p to 140.52p.
Earlier this week, the government warned fuel companies that they were being given 'one last chance' to improve transparency in the market.
Retailers have long been accused of responding to increases in wholesale prices much more quickly than price falls – prices shoot up like a rocket and fall like a feather, said Bosdet.
Transport secretary Justine Greening has now ordered retailers to set up a code of practice that allows drivers to monitor changes in petrol and diesel prices. If they don't, the government has said it will implement legislation.
Retailers claim that the industry does not understand the complex pricing mechanism, said Bosdet. Yet this fall in the price of oil is a perfect example of why greater transparency in the market would benefit suppliers as well as drivers.
On the one hand transparency would show drivers that a quarter of the savings from the original fall in wholesale prices was yet to be reflected at the pump, while on the other retailers and suppliers accused of pocketing the benefits of falling oil prices, would be able to defend themselves as to why a weaker pound means there will be no added savings.
Wholesale Debt Market witnesses trade worth Rs 2,865.07 crore on NSE - Economic Times
Top securities (non-repo) traded at the WDM were: The 8.79 per cent government securities maturing in 2021, which traded at Rs 1015.00 crore at a weighted yield of 8.37 per cent, the 9.15 per cent government securities maturing in 2024, which traded at Rs 590.00 crore at a weighted yield of 8.41 per cent and the 364-days Treasury bills (issue no.190413), which traded at Rs 105.00 crore at a weighted yield of 8.13 per cent.
During the week ended today, the total turnover was Rs 12,207.44 crore and the total number of trades during the week at 516.
The highest amount of trade during the week was at Rs 2,865.07 crore as on today, while the lowest volume Rs 1,956.11 crore as on May 31.
This week, the weighted yield on government securities with a maturity period of 0-3 years, 3-7 years, 7-10 years and more than 10 years was quoted at 8.10 per cent, 8.39 per cent, 8.51 per cent and 8.57 per cent, respectively.
The weighted yields on treasury bills maturing within 90 days was 8.34 per cent, it was 8.36 per cent for bills of 91-182 days tenure, and 8.27 per cent for bills of 183-365 days' tenure.
During the week, the cumulative value of government securities, treasury bills and state government securities trading on the WDM was Rs.10,179.09 crore, trading in Non- Government securities was at Rs 2,028.35 crore, representing 83.38 per cent and 16.62 per cent of the total traded value, respectively, the NSE release said.
Lexity Announces Support of Google Shopping - YAHOO!
Lexity, the provider of marketing apps for ecommerce, today announced that it supports Google Shopping, planned for introduction in the Fall.
Mountain View, Calif (PRWEB) June 01, 2012
Lexity, a provider of marketing apps for ecommerce, today announced that it supports Google Shopping, planned for introduction this Fall.“The changes to Google’s shopping cart, will provide a better user experience that will help our merchants succeed in this evolving world,” said Amit Kumar, CEO of Lexity. “We have already been providing both Google Product Search and Product Listing ads to our small to medium size merchant clients. We welcome the merging of these two separate products into one unified program.”
Lexity enables merchants to deliver superior results from Google advertising while minimizing the time spent managing these campaigns. With Google Shopping, Lexity will automatically manage the bidding for its merchants and provide them with a simple reporting interface, without requiring them to become AdWords experts. Today, Lexity manages Product Listing Ads using a similar fully automated system.
Lexity was one of the early adopters of Google Product APIs and was featured in Google I/O last year.
About Lexity
Lexity offers a versatile suite of marketing apps for ecommerce, enabling simple and affordable online advertising for small and medium-sized businesses. Founded in 2009, Lexity is backed by Spark Capital, True Ventures and Dave McClure’s 500 Startups. Lexity is headquartered in Mountain View, and has a presence in Bangalore, India. For more information, visit lexity.com, Twitter (@lxty), and Facebook (facebook.com/goLexity).
For more media information, contact:
Lisa Hendrickson
516-767-8390
lisapr(at)optonline(dot)net
Amelia Lin
Lexity
650-961-2785
Email Information
Google Shopping: Wanna Play? Gotta Pay - E-Commerce Times
Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) is nixing its free product search model, opting instead to charge merchants and retailers to appear in Google product search listings.
Currently, retailers can provide information about their products and then add them to the search listings for free, where they are ranked by popularity and price. Under the new model, dubbed "Google Shopping," retailers will be required to pay in order to appear in search results.
Rankings will then be determined by merchant bid price in addition to relevance. The products will appear in Google Shopping boxes, which will feature the paid search results in "sponsored" boxes above the regular search results.
Google Shopping is currently in an experimental phase and will be complete this fall. The search company hopes that maintaining a commercial relationship with retailers will help them keep their product listings up to date. Fresh and accurate search results will lead to a better online shopping experience for consumers and consequently more revenue for merchants, wrote Sameer Samat, vice president of product management for Google Shopping, in a blog post Thursday.
Google didn't respond to our request for additional comment.
Boosting Profits
In addition to creating what Google says will be a better experience for both merchants and shoppers, the new model could also boost Google's profit 
margin.
"Based on our clients' results, we would expect Google Shopping to increase Google's paid click total in the neighborhood of 2 to 5 percent over the long term. That's not a huge percentage, but it would ultimately mean billions more in revenue for Google," Mark Ballard, senior research analyst at Rimm-Kaufman Group, told the E-Commerce Times.
Profit is likely to come without many complaints from retailers, Ballard said.
"The reaction from our retail clients has been more positive than I expected," he said. "While no one is happy about having to pay for traffic that we were previously getting for free, a number of retailers have expressed optimism that the change will help fight price erosion and eliminate low-quality merchants who turn customers off from the entire comparison shopping channel."
The updated business model could even help merchants' bottom lines in addition to Google's, Rob Abdul, an e-commerce consultant, told the E-Commerce Times.
"I'm sure to offsetting the cost of a paid placement with a larger number of click-throughs will balance out the books," he said.
The retailers this move might hurt are the smaller ones, Ron Rule, vice president of e-commerce for Infusion Brands, told the E-Commerce Times. While larger retailers such as Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN), Target and Walmart (NYSE: WMT) can already offer competitive pricing and have the budget to boost advertising and search placement, smaller brands that might have lucked out with free Google product search offers could struggle under the new model, he said.
That may not necessarily be bad news for consumers.
"It's the smaller websites, primarily those who carry no inventory and sell through drop-shippers, that will be hurt by the change," he said. "But that's not necessarily a bad thing for buyers -- as it stands, Google shopping is fairly easy to manipulate, and I've often searched for a product and landed on an 'out of stock, consider these instead' page. I suspect a lot of those never even had the product for sale and were simply looking to capitalize on searches for a major brand's name so they could offer a lower-priced alternative."
Keeping It Fair
Google has already faced criticism for its general search rankings, and having retailers pay for a spot in Shopping might raise more eyebrows among regulators, said Ballard. However, the distinction between Google Shopping products and other search results should help Google's side if a legal argument should arise.
"It seems that the federal authorities themselves aren't sure how search engines like Google should be regulated, but one key concern is that paid results be distinguished from the organic or algorithmic results," said Ballard. "This change will probably raise another round of questions about Google, but as long as they clearly label Google Shopping results as sponsored links, as they intend to, I believe they will be in the clear."
Google could also likely argue that under the new model, anyone has the chance to compete, said Abdul.
"I believe this is Google trying to even out the playing field between small and larger online retailers to compete fairly," said Abdul.
Rural broadband would only benefit the rich, says Labour MP Graham Jones - Daily Telegraph
Mr Jones claimed the investment provided poor value for money and would create just 25 jobs.
Speaking in Parliament he also claimed “That £32 million will mean faster internet shopping for millionaires; it will not generate business in rural communities. White middle-class and upper-class areas will get the money and deprived, working-class areas will have money removed from them. It will not provide additional businesses or create jobs. This is just about faster internet shopping for wealthy people.”
Sarah Lee, Head of Policy for the Countryside Alliance, condemned the MP's attitude. "Graham Jones has criminally missed the point of these plans," she said. "In a digital age the need for fast and reliable broadband is just as important as the need for gas, electricity and water. People need to access more services online, especially critical Government services; businesses need the internet for growth; and much of everyday communication now occurs online.
In contrast to Mr Jones views, earlier this year shadow Culture Minister Harriet Harman criticised the Coalition for not doing enough to provide fast broadband to rural areas. "The Government can talk about ultra-fast and super-fast, hyper-fast and mega-fast, all (it) likes but what is happening is the creation of a digital underclass," she claimed.
Edwin Booth, Chairman of the Lancashire Enterprise Partnership, said: "creating this network could be as important as the construction of the canals and railways was to the Industrial Revolution".
Mr Jones added "I am not against rural broadband per se or denying others but is this our priority for Government funding in austere times? £30m investment would surely be more beneficial in real infrastructure and ensuring businesses in urban are connected at 100mbps as in rival economies."
Mr Jones told the Telegraph that he was in favour of rural broadband, but wanted to see more of it delivered by private sector investment. “My concern is only Lancashire and value for money economic development,” he said. “I don’t know enough to comment about national rural broadband issues. Every area is different.” He claimed £4.7m in local Council Tax was being taken from the most deprived East Lancashire areas to fund the broadband scheme.
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