Multi Currency Selection

[johngwms]

We have customers in the UK and other EU countries.

I am receiving more requests from EU customers to have their orders processed and cards charged in Euros.

At the moment I display in GBP (with equivalent in Euros) but all the processing has to be in GBP.

I would like the customer to be able to select shopping cart and card processing in GBP or Euros.

This would help encourage more EU business by making the site more EU friendly.

[Mike Hughes]

They're probably complaining because the pound strengthening against the Euro means your 1.15 conversion rate is no longer accurate. It probably costs them 4-5% more than your site says once the banks commission is taken into account. Say £50 extra on a £1,000 order.

I can see technical, practical and even business practice difficulties to doing this as a site with multi-currency payments.

In terms of practicality:

1. The easiest approach is going to be to update your conversion rate regularly to keep it accurate. Possibly allow for an extra 2% (or whatever) currency conversion costs so your customers will know what the real costs are. (and make sure you tell them how your Euro prices are calculated).

2. If you really want a Euro priced site then your best option might be to create a mirror site priced in Euros. Could be on a sub-domain or a one with a .eu extension. Then all you need is a euro merchant account and psp.

3. I suspect it will probably be some time before you see this in Actinic which is why I'm suggesting some alternatives.

Mike

[johngwms]

Thanks Mike

The conversion rate I quote is generous and the real costs to me are minimal (0.2% on top of normal card processing charges). That is not the issue.

EU customers are more comfortable working in Euros and I want to make life as easy for my customers as I can. Imagine how you would feel if some of your purchases online were in Euros instead of pounds!

I think the mirror site idea seems to be the best. I am just concerned about the possible SEO disadvantages (eg duplicate content which could damage both sites).

John

[leehack]

Mirror sites are your only option. Both sites will not be affected by duplicate content, only the duplicate sites ever are generally, so the one that has been around the longest is usually safe and others suffer if indeed there will be a penalty. I have a number of customers with mirror sites for multiple currencies and have not seen any issues myself. Duplicate penalties are generally for people trying to fiddle, you're not.

[Mike Hughes]

The conversion rate I quote is generous and the real costs to me are minimal (0.2% on top of normal card processing charges). That is not the issue.

The conversion rate used to be generous. Not these days.

At the 1.15 you're using an £800 item would appear as 920 Euros. At todays rate of 1.165 (or thereabouts) it's going to cost them 932 Euros. So more than they're expecting and that's before their bank maybe charges them 2% conversion on top making an expected 920 Euro purchase turn into 950 Euros on the credit card bill.

( of course I could always be getting this back to front and upside down but I don't think so).

I agree about buying in Euros being easier for them, but remember that the reason they're buying from you is because the pound is weak and they're saving money by doing it. Yes, having everything in Euros will be easier for them but I suspect they're main concern is that the pricing isn't accurate and they're not saving as much as they think they will.

Just my opinion though, nothing more.

If you want it in Euro's then a duplicate site is going to be the best option. Quite easily done.

I agree with Lee about the duplicate penalty consideration. Duplicate content penalties aren't a general penalty. It's just if there are two copies of the same thing Google only want to display one in the search results, not get rid of both.

Mike

[Duncan Rounding]

Norman's Norprice add in shows prices in currencies at the going rate which is better than making manual adjustments regularly.

[johngwms]

Thank you Mike and Lee

I am now setting up a mirror site.

Presumably I will need to setup two different sites within Actinic. I have the Business Plus version so this shouldn't be a problem.

However, apart from the pricing being in GBP on one site and Euros on the other the site content will largely be the same.

Does this mean that if I make a modification to one site that I will have to repeat the change to the other? It would be nice if I can use a common set of source files for both sites.

[Mike Hughes]

I think you can link the content of the second site to the database fields used for the first. That way any changes in the original version will get picked up in the copy.

The other option is to use an external excel file as the master and import that into both sites.

I've been wondering what I would do for seo for the site. I suspect the best option is to choose the original site as the one to rank and de-optimise the other one. Maybe strip out the keyword tags, H1 / H2 tags, etc from the layouts. Then I would put a link in the product layout of the first site saying something along the lines of "buying from Europe? You can order in Euros here...." with a link to the equivalent page on the euro site.

Mike