I don't know where you were buying your records, but you were taken. I have many, many imports with price stickers under or around 10 bucks purchased between 1976 and 1980. Domestics were still in the 5 - 7 buck range. I started selling audio, and as an extension audiophile records, in 1978. At that time Mo-Fi, Sheffield, Telarc, and the smaller labels all sold for $15.95. The closest I saw to 40 bucks were the original UHQRs, box sets not included.
I take it you don't live in Canada. You do realize that just based on exchange rates alone there should be a 15% premium in Canada at that time. There was a 13% Federal Sales Tax (reduced to 11% around 1980) on everything sold in Canada at the time, applied at the wholesale level so that every step along the way to the retail customer, it was compounded (it was killed when Canada introduced the GST in the late 1980's, something few consumers realize).
Although the GST, introduced I believe in 1989 and currently at 5%, is unpopular amongst consumers, it replaced a tax that generated less revenue and raised retail prices considerably more; the hidden, wholesale FST alone resulted in retail prices roughly 25% higher, versus 5% higher with the GST.
Finally the cost of advertising and marketing were factored into wholesale prices; in a bizarre situation, it was common industry practice for Canadian distributors to pay an equal (per capita) share of US advertising, and then they had to pay the cost of domestic advertising and marketing alone.
Fewer warehousing facilities and longer distances (Canada is 1,000 km wider than New York to LA) mean higher transportation costs cross country, and typically the retailer pays for shipping.
Also at the time there were duties and tariffs on all audio (and all LP records) imported into Canada. Duties and Tariffs were reduced or eliminated during the 1980's and 1990's, so that today there is none on electronics or software imported into Canada from almost every nation on Earth, unless your CEO is Kim Jong-Un.
With all the above factors taken together, plus a few more not mentioned, compared to the US, prices for everything audio were roughly 60% higher (if it was imported from the UK, you might find prices were only 35% higher) at the time if you do not account for currency differences, while the vinyl industry was entirely domestic manufacture and set it's own prices. However it may be relevant that there was (and is now) no domestic PVC production in Canada, so there would be higher transport, import costs, that FST, and so on.
I made it clear in my post that I was talking $Canadian and referring to the Canadian market.
I suppose I could have flown down to Los Angeles every Saturday to buy my records. And like you I owned an Audio Store during that period, and got discounts from virtually every reseller in town not available to the general public, because I was buying about 5~10 albums a week (we didn't sell records). Even then, I was paying about $13 a copy. As for the Direct-To-Disk records, which we sold at the store, well, your retail prices are higher than my wholesale prices.
Regards.
