Press finally picks up on Swiss Franks rise on the US Dollar

This morning's New Zurich Times' leading story has to do with the falling US Dollar vs. the rising Swiss Frank. I mentioned this earlier. They mention that prices for US goods sold in Switzerland are near twice that for those same goods in the United States. They post the price of the Dollar at about 1.01 Swiss Franks, which I haven't seen yet, as most quotes I've come across have been about 1.03.

Further inside the paper they give a chart of various goods that are overpriced when purchased here in Switzerland. They also editorialize that the prices must fall. Trademark goods are ridiculously expensive. Especially when you consider that many of these products are no longer made in the United States.

Yesterday, I wandered around a couple of shops. One was a bookstore, but I realized that at the prices involved to buy from a scant collection of English language tech books, I could order from Amazon, with overnight shipping and still save. I take hits all along the way in that transaction, first with a padded exchange rate, a fee to transfer funds to my US account, expensive shipping to Switzerland, and lastly a potential 2.3% or so sales tax and 10 Frank fee from the Swiss Government. Still, it is way cheaper to get these goods from the United States. I get a better selection and cheaper prices.

SihlCity

So today I decided to go check out SihlCity, the big shopping center just on the south side of downtown Zurich. It's not too bad. It's not really all that big though compared to the malls I've been to in America.

Parking is a big problem. Yeah, I know, this is Europe, but 4 franks for the first hour and then an additional frank each for the next hours is just a little bit expensive. I did manage to park for exactly 59 minutes and only paid the four franks. On the other side, it's pretty easy to get to. Well, it is once I figured out the way to the parking lot. The big downside transportation-wise is that public transportation isn't too convienient, and that it's actually easier for us to take the train downtown and go shopping, or even go to the Airport.

There are a bunch of clothing shops. There's a huge MediaMarkt (the European equivalent to Best Buy) and a large COOP supermarket. Sadly though, the COOP supermarket doesn't have much more in the way of variety than our local shop, and the parking is much cheaper there, or it's about a 15 minute walk. There was also a big bookshop, but I'll bet that there is a better English book selection at the Orell Fuesseli shop downtown.