Currency Issues

[Duncan]

Hi All,

Glad to see that I'm not the only one around here who struggles a bit sometimes!

Anyway here we go. ;) The problem is that I have been trying to evaluate how to convert the dropshippers postage charge band costs into the price sets appropriate suitable currency values. :-x

:o Which is EURO, now after chatting to the dropshipper; and deciding that more business comes from europe than america. (Dropshippers words - no offence) :o

You see pretty much it's all done for me, the dropshipper has a price set convert function (euros) at there site for the product costs. So the products themselves are already done. I'll 'somehow' try to balance a figure ontop of what they have allocated the items, in order to create my margin and a figure before postage.

There is a price band system that has been created for the postage costs. The postage comes in categories (A, B, C, D, ect.... equalling the suggestive weight of the individual product - products already categorised with the appropriate letter also for me to copy- has been done no problem there!).

Problem being the values given to me by the dropshipper, for instance: Band A = 3.99, B = 6.40 are in english currency. However, If I try to convert them the values are always changing. I did this and noted the first figure I was given with XE converter and tried again later and found out I was losing out by as much as 60p

:?: Should I just make up a figure and hope the conversion rates will not go above this. or what? Obviously the products are going to do the same, 'but i'm confident that the dropshippers set price before my margin and postage is added will stay by them at that given value'. Can anyone help me out here at thinking of the way i'm going to convert the values of the postage prices without losing out to hefty conversion rates. :?:

P.S. Not sure if PayPal will make any difference to the conversion process, obviously I have to tell the customer somehow what the price is going to be before we get to the PayPal stage at the end at the checkout.

Sincerly
Duncan
www.angelsandjewels.com

[KarenMac]

Duncan..

Either that or you can raise the product price to cover inflation of shipping prices, and leave your shipping costs as is. If its too confusing.. raise prices and give FREE SHIPPING or SHIPPING INCLUDED..

Karen

[cameraplus]

Duncan,
You're always going to be up against this problem when dealing with currency exchange rates because those rates are always changing.

If you're going to use converted prices it's probably best to bump them up a bit, say +10%, if you don't want to lose out at at all. You'd still need to check and adjust your shipping pricing regularly though because of exchange rate fluctuations.

Or you can do as Karen suggested and increase your product prices to cover shipping and offer Free Shipping for your customers - not really 'free' of course, but gives the impression it it is.

Yet another option is to use a fixed table for shipping based on the value of the order. That can work out so you lose a bit sometimes, and make a bit more other times, so things even out.

Overall, there's no perfect solution to how you handle your shipping charges, you just need to find what works best for you.

[onlineMFuser]

I think what you can do -

1) update the price in $ as well as £ - best xchanage rate with minimal difference
2) you can use a drop down price. you can see this on my reseller(for godaddy) site - www.ivdomain.com. I really don't know how it works internally as this is controlled by godaddy. This is what I will be working on putting on my SOL hosting site too.... I really don't know if it will work but I will give it a try too..

hope this helps....

Harry