Dave,
You are quite correct, tackle prices in Scandinavia are really scandalous.
However, having been the part owner of a company that used to import and market tackle in this area I have to say that the import taxes, freight charges, MVA (vat) corporation tax, loan facility fees, et al, really do take up the vast majority of the difference between the wholesale and retail prices.
In the 5 years or so that I was associated with this (small) company we imported rods, reels, poles, tackle and groundbait from the UK, Italy, France, Germany, Sweden and Holland.
In addition we imported maggot every two weeks during the season, which had its own particular problems with licenses necessary from 2 different government departments.
Prior to the EOS Agreement that gave Norway EU rights without actually being a member, the paperwork to import say a dozen poles from a Italian company was about 3 inches thick.
I would regularly spend anything upto 5 hours a week at the Customs and freight forward agents offices during the season.
Then you have to take into account storage facilities for tons and tons of ground bait, and secure facilities for everything else.
All in all I think we made less than 3% profit annually, although trade prices on my own purchases were the real incentive for all the work I put in over those years.
All in all though it was a very enjoyable past-time but I certainly would not have wanted to make my living from this type of work. And, believe me, unloading tons of groundbait is not an easy job especially when the driver is on an hourly rate.