Forced to raise prices due to currency exchange

Best way to change prices. All at once or have it float.

[lgn]

We are a canadian website that does 90% of our business in the USA. We have been lucky for the past five years as the currency sat in the 63-65 cent American range.

Over the past several months, it has increased to 71 cents. I have been eating the price difference and charging the Americans on a 65 cent dollar, hoping that the dollar would soon drop.

Well I have given up hope and have moved my conversion rate to 70 cents.

I have played with the idea of having a floating rate that changes every day, by hooking to a currency server every day, but I wonder what annoys customers more.

a) having stable prices, followed by a sudden change everyonce in a while

b) have constantly changing prices.

Any marketing majors out there, with a defintive
answer.

[grahamstewart]

I'm no marketing major, but I am a consumer. :)

If I got to 'foreign' website then usually I expect to pay whatever the current exchange rate is. So I'd go with floating prices.

I suspect this might be beneficial to sales as your US customers may be more tempted to impulse buy when the US $ is strong against the Canadian $.