US and CAD Currencies

[Dan]

Does anyone know if you need to build 2 Miva stores to be able to charge people in 2 different currencies depending on where they are from? I.e i would like to charge US dollars for people located in the US, and Canadian dollars for people in Canada. I know of a currency conversion tool that i could use to display the local currency, however i'm not sure how the checkout would work.

Thanks.

[d_host]

Re: US and CAD Currencies

Payment gateways are typically limited to charging in just one currency at a time, so this would require having two merchant accounts: one for US$ and one for CAD$. This, then, would require two separate stores, each with a different payment module configuration, talking to the respective merchant account. You can host both stores on the same domain using Additional Store License for the second store, but those would be two independent stores - sharing one common admin login to both stores, and the same domain name, SSL certificate, etc.

[Dan]

Re: US and CAD Currencies

Thanks for your response Remik. If i add another store (my USD store), is it possible for it to know when the customer is located in the US and show only my USD store? And likewise for my Canadian customers. Or do i have to set a base currency and then have a 'change currency' tool?

Also, general question, is it easy to replicate my store? and do i have to pay the full price of building my first store again, with all the modules etc.

[d_host]

Re: US and CAD Currencies

If you wanted to do auto-detection on where the customer is coming from (US vs Canada), you'd need to use a tool on the server that checks reverse IP lookups and sends clients to a specific URL that corresponds to the US or Canadian store. Certainly doable, though you will most likely need some help from your host. I haven't tested this with Miva in the way you described, but I can think of couple different ways of doing that. If you wanted to keep this simpler, you could either present clients with the option to click on the country they are from (completely free solution) or set up two stores on subdomains, like us.yourdomain.com and canada.yourdomain.com.

With this setup you wouldn't be using currency exchange on the fly, you'd just set your pricing independently in both stores. This makes sense not only because of the fluctuating exchanges, but also it makes it look better when prices in both stores are, let's say U$29.99 and CAD$34.99, vs U$29.99 and CAD$35.17. Or, you could use a global exchange conversion from U$ to CAD$ and have a script that adjusts prices in one of the stores every day (or even hourly?) based on the exchange rate, by simply adjusting the price in mySQL tables, based on the price in the US store. Kind of overkill, and I'm sure customers wouldn't want to see prices change on the same item every hour or every day - hence it's better to stick to a fixed price in each store.

To replicate your store - your host should be able to help you with that - if not - contact us :-) We can copy a live store onto a new domain or subdomain, and retain all modules and customizations "as is" (well, other than implementing new licenses for all 3rd party modules and the store itself, as those are generally licensed on a per-store basis and you cannot use the same license in two stores).

[Dan]

Re: US and CAD Currencies

So it looks like the best option is to buy an 'Additional Storefront' under the same domain to create a USD store. Then customers can have the option throughout the site to 'change currency', which will take them to the USD store?

To be honest, i'm not 100% how this is going to work, but i'll have a go at it and see what happens...

Thanks for your help Remik!

[d_host]

Re: US and CAD Currencies

You can use the Additional Store License if you want to host both US and Canadian stores on the same domain, or, you can do what some of our clients have done - have the .com store to be the US/International store, and .ca domain for the Canadian store. Then on the site have something like the US and Canadian flag symbols to direct clients to respective stores. Take a look at 110220volts.com - top right corner - as an example.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Re: US and CAD Currencies

Don't know if it would be any less expensive, but we've done two sites that use separate CA and Other pricing. (www.newsociety.com). There are two payment modules and each is swapped based on the billing address (their requirement). Less update issues/maintainance issues. (Also, store displays both prices, but could show only relevent one is customer is logged in.)

[Dan]

Re: US and CAD Currencies

Thanks guys, it looks like there is a few good ways to do this. However, i think i will go with adding an Additional Store License so that i can have 2 different stores for USD and CAD under the one domain. This is because i am planning on having some different products in each store. Although, i'm still unsure of a couple of things regarding the module; Is the new store added as a sub-domain, or can i add the new store as a sub-directory (which i would prefer for SEO reasons)? Also, when i install the module, can i copy the same store as i already have, or do i have to configure the new store from scratch?

Also, i have a question for Remik; I thought that i have to buy the Additional Store License module from Miva Central, however i noticed that its also available on dotCOM host on sale for $99? Is this the exact same module?

Thanks again for your help!

[d_host]

Re: US and CAD Currencies

If you use the "Additional Store License", then you basically have multiple stores all hosted on the same exact domain name - not a subdomain or even a sub-directory. Both stores will work from /Merchant2/merchant.mvc and have that in their URLs. The way you differentiate between stores is by specifying the store code in the URLs. You'll notice Miva Merchant by default adds &Store_Code=xxxx (where xxxx is your store code as you defined in admin). If you have multiple stores, you simply add &Store_Code=xxxx or &Store_Code=yyyy to all URLs you create, and Miva Merchant will know which store to pull data from.

The problem here may be SEO related work and short links - you'll need to figure out how to handle different SEO options and short links for each store, which is more complicated since both stores would share the same paths and URLs, other than the Store_Code variable.

If you already have an existing store, copying it to another domain or another subdomain, "as is", would be a simple process, but that would not be the case if you use the Additional Store license. Going that route would require more work in terms of copying the existing store configuration, modules, products, categories, etc. Doable, yes, but a lot more work than copying the entire store to another domain or subdomain.

And yes, we do have a sale right now on the Additional Store licenses, only $99 (regularly $269). Sale ends Nov.30 so if you are interested in using this particular option - don't forget to get that license while the sale is on (you don't have to activate it before Nov.30 - just have to purchase it before then). Licenses are available at https://www.dotcomhost.com/go_dotcom.mvc?p=mm_mall

[Dan]

Re: US and CAD Currencies

I think i would still rather go with an additional store under the same domain, mainly because i think it would be much better for the sites SEO, and will also help those new pages' ranking.

Although, we have an SEO module installed that shortens the URLs, so i'm not sure how the additional store would work, but i guess at worst the new store will have the long miva URLs. Either that, or i could use the SEO module to shorten the new stores URLs too.

The main thing before i buy the module is whether it can be used for this purpose. I.e i would like a similar set-up to 110220volts.com, so that people can switch between the US and Canadian stores, but all under the same domain.

Great deal on the module, thanks Remik.

[d_host]

Re: US and CAD Currencies

Sure, you can do that. Instead of redirecting to a different domain (.com vs .ca), you'd simply change the links to &Store_Code=US and &Store_Code=CANADA.

[nixusr]

Re: US and CAD Currencies

I'm actually working with a client whom has a 'mall style' setup. In their admin is 5 stores but only one will be dedicated to Canadian shoppers.

The client has set the product prices to the Canadian currency. However, what can be done to make sure the customer is charged that amount? And also, the client wants to use their 'Verisign Payflow Pro (PayPal)' account.

Just trying to figure out how to keep the customer from being charged inaccurately.

[d_host]

Re: US and CAD Currencies

You'd have to make sure the Payflow Pro account is set to connect a merchant account which processes transactions in C$ rather than US$. This would require a separate PFP account as you can only have one gateway talking to one merchant account, not multiple accounts and/or multiple currencies (at least not without a lot of extra coding - something that you'd need to do on your own as there are no 3rd party modules to handle this situation).

[Kent Multer]

Re: US and CAD Currencies

There is a simple way to make one store display prices in two (or more) different currencies:

http://www.vikingcoders.com/store/me..._CURRENCYMAGIC

[nixusr]

Re: US and CAD Currencies

> Remik

Thank you for your response. You hit the topic right on the head and also validated the same point my co-worker tried to convince the client on.