Cross-Border Shopping: Overrated?

On Saturday the wife Betty and I drove into the USA to spend some CDN. Seven percent discount on everything! We bought some beer and wine at Cost Cutters, some clothes at J Crew, some house stuff at Crate & Barrel, and an iPhone. In other words, stuff that can't be bought in Vancouver, at prices that we can smile about. And let’s not forget: seven percent discount on everything! Man, it’s fun to say that.

Bought the iPhone at the Apple Store in Bellevue. The heart of Microsoft country. There's a Microsoft building just up the block from the Apple Store, in fact—I’ll bet the employees there all use iPhones. I had heard that the store might be reluctant to accept a Canadian credit card, so I went to an ATM first and got out a big wad of USD. Went to the counter and said, “I’d like an iPhone, please,” and hauled out my cash. The Apple “Genius” said, “Sorry, we don’t accept cash for iPhones.”

I actually got a bit irate. I’m pretty sure there’s a law against refusing cash in an American store. I asked to speak to the manager. She explained that the policy is there to prevent re-sellers from poaching iPhones, and that they have the right to refuse service to anyone. That last part is undeniably true. They offered to take my credit card, so I pulled it out, thinking, “Well, so much for that. No iPhone for me.” But they took it without a blink, and now I have an iPhone AND a big wad of USD in my wallet.

After we got home from the trip, we realized that out of the 11.5 hours there and back, about 1.5 hours was actually spent shopping. We had to ask ourselves: what is 10 hours of our time, hours we’ll never get back, worth?

The moral of the story: go, take advantage—but go on a weekday.