Selling a product world-wide - is US dollars OK

[Digmen1]

Hi Guys

We have a unique product that we are starting to sell world-wide.

We are setting up a simple shopping cart.

Do you think pricing in US dollars only is a good idea ? I want to keep it simple and wonder if people in UK or Europe etc will relate to dollar pricing.

Any comments ?

[Receptional Andy]

I can't speak for everyone, but I would imagine most people in the UK would not buy something from a site priced only in dollars. I think most of them will just leave if they don't see a local currency.

The major concerns for me would be how do I know how much it will actually cost, and how will the purchase actually get to me? Will it cost a fortune to deliver, and what would I do if things go wrong?

[Essex_boy]

Interesting question, ive two sites, both targeted at Americans. So therefore, both are in USD, however one receives also exclusive UK traffic due to teh keywords not being universal.

As yet ive had no problems with sales, although they are low, English people seem to understand the situ, I have priced items in £ before only to have bemused Americans asking what the £ stands for.

[Mr Bo Jangles]

I've been selling a 'universal' product (software) via the web for 10 years. I am not US based, but have found that it is almost as if the rest of the English speaking world doesn't exist - the US market is so huge - 99.999% of our enquiry and sales comes from the US.
So in answer to your question - price it in US$ - the rest of the world doesn't matter *_*

Oh, and on our site we embed a currency converter (the xe.com one)so that potential non-US purchasers can convert to their pesos.

[edited by: Mr_Bo_Jangles at 9:50 pm (utc) on April 25, 2009]

[Demaestro]

Something to consider is that some CC accounts will charge their users a "foreign" transaction fee. There are some other fees for converting currencies that users can get dinged for as well.

I recently had this happen when a US customer bought something on my Canadian site, making her payment in cnd $. She called to ask why I charged her for a foreign transaction and something called a "key link" fee... turns out if was her card company that issued those fees, because she had a usd card and I was charging in cdn.

If you can offer a choice of USD, CND, and EURO that would be best but I know that gateways charge more for this type of service so it is hard to say what is the best in your situation.

[edited by: Demaestro at 11:32 pm (utc) on April 25, 2009]