Forum Moderators: phranque
Being canadian though, I always look at where they are located to confirm.
I think I will indicate USD on my websites from now on though.
So, in summary. Yes, many people assume .com to be in USD where applicable, even though they really shouldn't.
.com is certainly commercial, but just because a majority of those sites are from the US doesn't mean that it's view as a US-centric domain. There are plenty of Japanese and Chinese language sites with a .com address. This came about because a lot of countries initially made it very difficult and expensive to obtain a local commercial domain. In a lot of cases a .com was the more economical alternative.
I write UK hotel sites, the half of which are dot com. No user in their right mind would assume that the prices were in anything other then UK pounds.
Having re-read that I do recall some US visitors last year who thought that they should be able to use dollars in UK shops, and could not understand why we wanted real money!
i quote prices in US$ as people worldwide are happy with that and accept it in my industry, although i have uk customers asking if they can pay in pounds! (of course if you use a credit card then you just get billed in your local currency anyway)
of course if you use a credit card then you just get billed in your local currency anyway
Whilst that is true, it is more complicated than that.
If you are in the UK, and your credit card supplier is in the UK (say Visa) then your prices are quoted in UK pounds, and your US customer gets billed at whatever Visa'a daily exchange rate happens to be.
For example if you charge say £100, then it could be billed at $155.80 one day, and $156.20 the next if there had been movements in the exchange rate.
As far as I am aware there is no way to have your own "fixed" exchange rate of both, say, £100 and $155, if the punter is paying by credit card and you have an account with a UK credit card company.
If there is, I would be interested as I sell services worldwide, and would like to offer "fixed" rates in other countries.
Like in Sweden, you know that Volvo has volvo.com, Ericsson has ericsson.com, Saab has saab.com &c ..
If you go to France, they expect Renault to have renault.com, Citroën to have citroen.com .. &c ..
Most (smart) web sites offer prices in both the local currency and in USD, and I think that's an important point. Always specify the currency, and offer a rough conversion rate .. at least if the page is in English.
If the page is in Javanese, I doubt that anyone would assume the currency to be USD .. That only goes for English sites ..
