£ or $ or Euros?

[Gwhizz]

I run a small site selling software, currently my prices are in £GBP as it's my home currency yet I sell globally. Is there any advantage to selling in $USD? Will I see more sales? Should I include multiple currencies?

I use Paypal/uk as my payment processor so I'd have to factor in exchange rates if I use $USD or Euros. I'd be interested to know if any other UK sites have switched and seen an improvement in sales.

Many thanks.
Steven

[oneguy]

I'd sell in all 3, and more if you can do it conveniently. (worth the trouble)

The first question... where are your buyers located?

The second question... is buyer location a result of the way your site is set up?

You could be making it a little harder for a particular market. With something like software or scripts, I'd be shooting for anything and everything, including different sites hosted in different countries.

[oneguy]

including different sites hosted in different countries.

And to add... all of those sites would accept all currencies I could resonably accept.

[Gwhizz]

Hi,

Thanks for your input. Currently I have a .co.uk domain do you think there is merit in purchasing a .com? Is .com still seen as a US domain or multinational? Is .co.uk off putting to US customers?

Thanks again.

[trillianjedi]

I would purchase the .com anyway, even if just to stop someone else buying it.

TJ

[oneguy]

Is .co.uk off putting to US customers?

I dunno. I suspect one lost sale would make the .com worth owning.

I'd register a .com with a different name, new copy, new program name, even. Go ahead, compete with yourself. ;)

[DryFire]

2003 estimated GDP
US: $11 Trillion
Germany: $2.3 Trillion
UK: $1.7 Trillion
France: $1.7 Trillion
Italy: $1.6 Trillion
Span: $.9 Trillion
Poland: $.4 Trillion
Belgium: $.3 Trillion

What do you think?

[lorax]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld DryFire!

What's the source for those numbers?

[Raymond]

lorax, those numbers are quite accurate.

You can find the all countries GDP on the CIA website:

[cia.gov...]

USA is the largest economy with 11.75 trillion, the second is China with 7.2 trillion (if you don't include European Union), the third is Japan with 3.7 trillion.

[Leosghost]

GDP figures mean nothing in themselves ..what you need to think of is how much is the "spend capability" of the country on what you have on offer..

Do .for example the French ( market I know ) spend the same percentage of GDP on software as the US ...

Judging by the numer of kazaa empowered machines alone that I see ..the answer is NO ( there are other parameters ;) ..

More important in reaching your target market is where are you hosted ...depending on which SE's you are trying to attract and what percentage of the various countries connected individuals use which engines and wether in local or international ( usually that means US mode )...
I can set my prefs in G to move almost any site from page I to page "buried" ..same using other engines ( cept ATW ..bless it ..) some such as MSN will even rank you at "buried" to begin with less you are hosted in the enquirers country ..

[DryFire]

I wouldn't go so far as to say that, "GDP figures mean nothing in themselves..." I for one wouldn't go out of my way to target the countries that rank low on the list. For example, do you think you would have more success targeting the US which has the largest economy in the world, or would you be better off targeting the Tokelau Islands with a GDP of $1.5 million?

That being said, you are right that there are other factors that are worth considering as well. (i.e. GDP per capita, disposable income, number of people with internet access, ... etc.) I wouldn’t recommend blindly going off of GDP, but it does give you a good starting place.

In the example that was given of selling software over the internet I wouldn’t recommend targeting China even though it has a high GDP, at least not until they start respecting intellectual property rights.

[lorax]

>> those numbers are quite accurate

Wasn't doubting their accuracy. When we toss numbers around it's a good idea to include the source for others to followup on if they wish.

[abbeyvet]

In my experience the average US based user is hesitant about buying in another currency, whereas the average user outside the US does not have the same hesitancy about buying in dollars.

Given a situation where my buyers could be anywhere and I had to go for just one currency, I would pick dollars every time. But ideally I would have at least those three available at the same time.

Even though I am in Ireland I quite often opt to buy things in dollars even where a Euro payment is available - primarily because for various reasons I often have a dollar balance in PayPal. So you never can tell, and geograhical location is just one part of the picture.