Pounds not nickles

I know some gateways do convert it for the customers.  Never used this feature at all.    I'm in the US and all prices are in US dollars on my site.  I don't have a pop up with an exchange rate, because that one may vary from card issuing company to another.  They all have their little build in fees.  I worry that if we show a converted rate that it may not be what later shows on the customers statement.  That can open a whole new can of worms.  Sometimes customers ask up front and I tell them to check www.xe.com to get an idea, but warn them that bank/conversion charges may apply.   As a customer I would always figure out what the exchange rate it by myself, if I order from another country.  I have done so in the past and expect a site to run in their own currency.   Most international customers on our site use paypal, because paypal shows them the converted price.   Never had a problem at all.
Katharina

HI Angel
I abandoned setting up a UK site with UK pound configuration. My US site only displays US$. All customers see only US$ on the PC site. The only thing I try to help with is offering a pop-up for currency conversion calculation for non-US customers.

Katharina maybe more help.

There are different tiers for different "risks".

I recently renegotiated my rates by changing vendor. I previously was using LinkPoint as gateway and merchant and my total costs were 4-4.5% . With my new account they are 2.25-2.5% for the same mix of international, verified and non-verified. The percentage includes all monthly gateway and other fees. The extra few percentage points are significant given my unfortunate low overall gross margins ;-). Rates that merchants receive in the US depend on risk, volume and who you contact. Also the quality of service if you go too far.

My specific rate for a unverified non-US bank card is 3.75% plus 22cent.

By the way - I am much happier with Authorize.net than my previous gateway. I had a spate of fraudulent charge backs which caused a significant loss. I also now have fewer incomplete transactions.

Hi Katharina
I have recent switched to Nova also. I think the conversion thing is the Direct Currency Conversion (DCC) - but hopefully a customer never needs to "see" into the gateway.

Unless anyone has any other comments on this - I agree it is a question for my merchant bank.

Thank you both

Hi Mark
Thanks for the prompt response. I understand what you have described - but what if you were running your UK site taking UK pounds payments but had a US merchant bank account and US gateway.

Do you think that it would all be equivalent?

Secondly, I was looking at UK merchant  fees  for UK credit cards - the ones I found were quoting 3.5%, this is very high by US standards. Do you have any recommendations? ( I have both a UK and US address).

Thanks


Edited by geoff - 02-May-2008 at 8:29pm