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Which base currency do you believe I should be using on my site (and other stuff)?

by Nate Cat
6 replies
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NOTE TO MODS: This is copied and pasted from main forum! Feel free to delete other post because it is not really in the right forum.

I have a comparison website and it uses USD as the default price. I have not got any currency conversions on it at present. I used USD as the default because that is the most traded currency in the developed world.

The thing is... I am not in America - I am in UK and I am a UK citizen! This obviously presents a bit of a problem.

Bottom line - should I be doing my prices in UK currency and leave the sites set to UK currency (I am making reference to base currency here)?

1. I have to ensure that any company I use as an affiliate in my comparisons is set to USD (some only give USD prices anyway).

2. Even though my site is a .com I would imagine that it MAY index better in the UK. I am not so sure about this because it is hosted by a US company.

3. I am not sure if it is more likely to be used by UK people unless I were to use Adwords and advertise in a specific area...

4. The US market is bigger as far as I know. My website is hosted in US.

5. Many sites also have fixed rates for both USD and UK Pound.

6. One of the main companies that I promote only shows its prices in US dollars...

7. I have just come across a large company I wish to use on the site and I cannot set it to USD - I will have to mess about with a proxy now in order to reach the site as a US user... OR convert every price into USD (which means the prices will actually be inaccurate even though they probably have fixed US prices)

I really am getting irritated with with now because it has got me in a pickle. I have already realised that I have no other choice other than to put disclaimers telling people that the price may be different for their country because of currency rates.

I am not even going to entertain the idea of using any other currency - not even Euros for the moment... unless I get a good working API. Even then I need to consider what the base currency is going to be.
#base #currency #site #stuff
  • Profile picture of the author totalprocessing.net
    Whatever price you display for the product, make sure it is in the currency you want. There are currency converters available you may wish to use to help customers figure out the real price in their currency. What is the eCommerce platform you are using?
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    • Profile picture of the author Nate Cat
      Originally Posted by totalprocessing.net View Post

      Whatever price you display for the product, make sure it is in the currency you want. There are currency converters available you may wish to use to help customers figure out the real price in their currency. What is the eCommerce platform you are using?
      No eCommerce platform is being used. I am not selling - I am an affiliate of the companies. I program in ASP.NET MVC.

      I am not completely sure what you mean by the currency that I want. For the moment I am keeping them all in dollars as the base currency.

      I am actually seeing a new problem now... There is quite a significant difference between the US and UK prices (and that is not because of VAT from what I can see). This is getting depressing now.

      The companies in the industry that I am promoting often do both USD and other currencies. To be able to maintain ALL different currencies would be close to impossible, I believe. It looks like I may just have to stick with a single country or go into a joint venture because there is no way I can maintain this in reality unless I stick to one currency.
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  • Profile picture of the author luckypig
    I would adjust it based on visitors IP
    Do you have more visitors from UK. or US.?If you have more visitors from US you raether should go with their currency.
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    • Profile picture of the author KyleChapman
      Originally Posted by luckypig View Post

      I would adjust it based on visitors IP
      Do you have more visitors from UK. or US.?If you have more visitors from US you raether should go with their currency.
      This.

      Hit the nail on the head. Whatever most of your customers use should be the default.

      If you want to get fancy (this could be huge for you) use an IP sniffer and display USD for USA customers and BP for UK users.
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      I've done conversion work for many big companies such as Expedia, The Boston Globe, Kobo Books, Firestone and more...

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      • Profile picture of the author Nate Cat
        Originally Posted by KyleChapman View Post

        This.

        Hit the nail on the head. Whatever most of your customers use should be the default.

        If you want to get fancy (this could be huge for you) use an IP sniffer and display USD for USA customers and BP for UK users.
        ...either that or I am just not very clear in my question. It is actually irrelevant. I am talking about the BASE currency. Not really anything to do with any conversions. Obviously conversions need to be done if the site is used internationally. If I only plug the site in the US then I could stick with USD but the question is ALL ABOUT the base currency to use.

        The chances are that I will need to have separate database entries for USD and GBP anyway. Even that is a nightmare though. The reason why I may need both is because there seems to be quite a large disparity between the advertised prices for USA and UK (which seems grossly unfair considering that we get VAT slapped on top as well!!). I am presuming the extra cost is the exchange rate fee.

        The base currency for conversions (except for the unique GBP prices) will still be USD I think. Then again a huge company within my chosen industry actually has the same price for Euros as they are for dollars - and dollars are only 0.9 of a euro. We seem to always get the inflated prices regardless of where we are in Europe.
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    • Profile picture of the author Nate Cat
      Originally Posted by luckypig View Post

      I would adjust it based on visitors IP
      It is the base currency I am concerned with. Some prices are fixed for UK and USA and it would be inaccurate to convert from USD to GBP if they already have fixed GBP prices. It would look like a con even if I wrote disclaimers.

      Originally Posted by luckypig View Post

      Do you have more visitors from UK. or US.?If you have more visitors from US you raether should go with their currency.
      I will need to find that out when I start driving lots of traffic to the site. I beginning to think that: seeing as it is hosted in the US - it should naturally list in the USA. If I run an ad campaign though I believe it may do better in the US(but I do not know that for sure).
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