“I’m watching dollars go out the door,” N.B. business suffers from low dollar

MONCTON – New Brunswick business owners importing goods from the United States are continuing to struggle with the low Canadian dollar.

Jamie Thorne manages Interstate Batteries of Atlantic Canada. He’s a franchisee so he imports his batteries from the United States.

But he says the low dollar is draining his profits.

“In the last month, month and a half it’s dropped down almost to 30 cents on the dollar,” he said.

Thorne says the low dollar means he’s paying more for the same number of batteries.

“This morning it was travelling at a $1.26  and last week you were $1.23 it has that steady decrease,” he said.

“I’m basically watching dollars going out the door.”

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Car batteries aren’t the only things costing New Brunswickers more money. Other companies purchasing big ticket items across the border are also losing thousands on the dollar.

Frederic Gionet is a senior market analyst with 3+ Corporation in Moncton. He says companies who are struggling can look to global markets for help.

“It’s a good time to really look at yourself as not being Canada-centric or U.S.-centric and diversify your markets and look at global opportunities,” he said.

He says, for the most part, the low dollar has been good for the province.

“New Brunswick comes out ahead on this particular scenario where it does exports more than imports from the United States,” he said.

But at Interstate, Thorne says he’s told clients he may have to raise his prices to deal with the shortfall.

“You know when I tell them we’re going to have a price increase they are not surprised by it at all,” he said. “In fact a lot of them have increased prices to their customers as well.”