Can you recomend a cart that supports 2 currencies

[scm5436]

Hi,

I operate a number of e-commerce sites, mostly in GBP but one in EUR. Now I want to setup a new site but have the choice of GBP or EUR - so prices are displayed in GBP by default, for example, but the customer can click on a little currency button on the page and all the prices are suddenly converted to Euros.

Our current e-commerce software can't do this, so is there one you can suggest that has this feature? We have two merchant accounts, one for each currency so it would need to be able to selected between merchant accounts (as opposed to just converting the final checkout price into a single currency at the end, which I assume is how some work?).

Other useful features-

1) Cheap
2) Easy to use (we have limited learning/development time)
3) Ability to import products in bulk from CSV or similar
4) Easy Order processing (eg. press a button and it prints the invoice, packing slip and address labels for all of the orders)
5) Short checkout
6) Upselling in cart
7) SEO friendly

[consultant]

I thought most carts could do this - what one are you using?

Goto testacart.com and you will see a selection of carts.

[scm5436]

Actinic....

[scm5436]

and from the test site above only one of the demo's I tried actually worked...

[KateCB]

oscommerce.....free, easy and supports multi currencies

[PointandStare]

OSC isn't easy to use - For that, and all the requirements above, you'll need zen cart (http://zencart.com).

[AndyP]

EROL will also do this with ease

[scm5436]

So OSC, Zencart and EROL can all do this specific part of the multicurrency?

We have two merchant accounts, one for each currency so it would need to be able to selected between merchant accounts (as opposed to just converting the final checkout price into a single currency at the end, which I assume is how some work?).

As that's probably the most important bit - I need customers to be charged in the currency they selected and I don't want to have to get another different type of payment method.

[peterstagg]

Try x-cart (3w's.x-cart.com).
It has
Support for up to two different currencies in the products catalog (NOTE: payment processing is possible in one currency only!)
Automatical currency conversion

I use it on some of my sites. It has a lot of advantages over other carts. but it is not perfect!

The issue I see with your needs is that merchant account usually do not accept foreign currency purchases. They need to have the purchase in the merchants local currency. The customer will be charged in their local currency by either their bank or the credit card company with the conversion done then.

I am not sure why you need two merchant accounts. You should only be charging in GBP with a euro conversion to GBP in your cart.

or am I missing something?

[Page]

CS cart but not the simple print out bit

[J-Wholesale]

I am not sure why you need two merchant accounts. You should only be charging in GBP with a euro conversion to GBP in your cart.

or am I missing something?

Because the euro conversion to GBP in the cart will rarely be exactly the same as the euro conversion at your payment collector. This means that someone paying in Euro could assume their charge will be 49.96 Euro, because that's what their shopping basket says, but they end up being charged 51.03 Euro, or something along those lines. Unless you're using PayPal, which can handle multiple currencies easily, you need a merchant account for each currency you accept payments in - which means that when someone clicks on a Euro flag, the entire payment parameters and pathway would change.

Now, this may not be important if non GB sales are small (1%, or the odd sale every week), as you could choose to accept the extra hassle and emails from customers, but if your Euro sales are significant, then the figures need to be perfect. It's even more important that the figures are perfect if you're selling to businesses.

[seaninbali]

You can also take a look at Prestashop... bulk importing is a mare but it's free, looks alright out of the box and let's the user switch easily between currencies (that you can update in the back office by hitting one button).

[peterstagg]

J-Wholesale Ok I see your point. I was unsure as I use barlcays and they have the option to accept payment in a range of international currencies. It would reduce overheads and make payment reconciliation easy instead of two merchant accounts.
The hard bit is to make sure your conversion factor is up to date because if the value of the Euro or pound currency create a wide enough gap then you could be either in deep water making a loss or become too expensive if the rates weren't changed to match the prevailing rates. That also relates to the multiple currency website. Unless the exchange rate is right you could lose money or customers. Unless you set your price in Euros (as the main currency)

I use x-cart and there is a third mod that you can buy that not only allows the customer to choose his payment currency but also retreives the latest daily currency exchange rates from both the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve Bank via XML to ensure the rates are always upto date.

Would that suit your needs?

[JamieM]

Hi scm5436,

We had this exact challenge but with US Dollars thrown in to the mix as well.

In the end we couldn't find an easy solution and to avoid a pricey custom build we are using a slightly clumsy method. We use a bit of html, Open Mind Commerce to manage our ecommerce structure and checkout using 3 hosted shopping cart accounts, one for each currency. It works well from the front end but is just a little bit awkward on the back end management. Worth it though.

Let me know if you want any more info on this.

[growgreatveg]

I'm using a 123reg solution. Disclaimer: You might want to google them, they are fine if you can muddle along yourself, but the support isn't good and people have had bad experiences. If you know nothing about webdesign and what your requirements are, you need to talk to a professional smaller firm that can take you through your options.

I like the solution I have because I can forward my .ie domain to the euro version of the site, and the .co.uk to the £stg site, and the backend is integrated, you just enter two prices, all the other details are the same.

Its a template site so you are limited with what you can do, but for a start up, it does the job... You can look at growgreatveg.co.uk and .ie to see how it works.

I think you can get a 30 day trial with a lot of solutions, but the problem is the effort you put it to configure a site - you don't want to spend a month finding out it won't work.

GGV.

[new2bus]

OSC isn't easy to use - For that, and all the requirements above, you'll need zen cart (http://zencart.com).

Go for Zen Cart.