Never one to let emotion cloud my judgement I went looking for retail markup comparisons on the net and couldn't find any reference comparing different countries although I did find some dated material on how markups are calculated
http://www.uniquebusinessdevelopment...opics/m2y3.htm
http://www.aguirregabiria.org/barcel...estud_1999.pdf
http://www.ecb.int/pub/pdf/scpwps/ecbwp856.pdf
but put simply everyone knows that, item cost(wholesale or production costs)+overheads-selling price= profit
and IMO often markups are set by greed but I said I didn't want to bore you with facts but are only to willing to research if anyone can point me in the right direction