Product Input & Pricing, HUGE PROBLEM, Affects all retailers

This forum is for questions and issues arising from the use of AbleCommerce 7.0 outside the United States. International purchases of AbleCommerce 7.0 are way up. Thank you!
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westcoastoffshore
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Product Input & Pricing, HUGE PROBLEM, Affects all retailers

Post by westcoastoffshore » Tue Nov 11, 2008 2:42 pm

Hi I am dealing with what would seem like a somewhat unique challenge at a glance but the underlying issue is substantial to all who conduct business and buy product from various countries in various currencies.

The challenge I am experiencing is that I purchase and sell products in the US and Canada. When setting up products within my catalogue I only have the ability to enter the product cost and sale in one currency; for example US.

The challenge is that if I am purchasing a product in CAD funds and selling it in CAD funds there is no accurate way of entering CAD pricing without first converting it manually into US funds. The outcome of this is problematic because when the US rate is automatically updated it throws the entire CAD pricing out of whack.

The Challenge: I need the ability to enter and price products both in US and CAD funds (In my case this could be more diverse for others). This could theoretically extend to all businesses selling and procuring products from multiple regions; especially if they are doing business on the fly in the sense of drop shipping to various countries or where they are not carrying inventory and have to rely constantly on variable price updating.

The main challenge is that if I am buying a product in CAD and selling it in CAD in a highly competitive market the pricing has to be accurate as fluctuations based on cost and sell pricing can cost sales to the competition. As I intend to carry thousands of products; a good deal of which are purchased from both the US and Canada this is proving to be an unimaginably large problem.

I feel a viable solution would be as follows:

On the product setup form there would be a field to choose the input currency for cost of goods. This field could default the primary currency but have the option of using any of the other currencies that you have added in the currencies section of the interface.

When displaying the product in the store; depending on the currency chosen by the consumer; the database would display the CAD sale price in CAD or figure into US retail (or other currency) as the user would determine by choosing a preferred currency from currency menu.

The other short coming I am finding is the ability to charge customers in both (US & CAD) types of currencies.

The first challenge is that if I sell a product (especially if this is a Canadian product purchased in Canada) to a Canadian living in Canada, paying in CAD funds and receiving the product in Canada at no point should US funds or exchange rates ever play into the equation. Whether I purchased the product from a supplier in Canada or the US only complicates the problem further.

The second challenge being that if a Canadian client purchases in Canada a product that is drop shipped from the US it would be much easier for customs brokerage to apply, duty, taxes etc when clearing the border if the invoice was in CAD or US funds respectively depending on the nationality of the customer.

The next challenge although related to the previous may be more daunting. I have not yet setup my Pay Pal gateway as that is the next step in this whole puzzle. Is it possible to have to two Pay Pal gateways? I have two bank accounts; one in CAD dollars and one in US dollars. The reasoning behind this is to be able to accept payment from Canadian residents in CAD funds and payments from US residents in US funds; and also to be able to pay for US product in US funds and Canadian product in CAD funds.

If anyone can offer some input on this daunting problem (especially Able developers) I think you would be doing all of your faithful software users a huge service. Thank you in advance for any and all help and input to deal with this ugly beast of a problem.

Regards,
Don

Mark Harris
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Re: Product Input & Pricing, HUGE PROBLEM, Affects all retailers

Post by Mark Harris » Sun Dec 28, 2008 6:05 pm

The international forum doesnt really seem to get read too often by the AC devs unfortunately.

As far as paypal goes, you can have multiple currencies in your account without any dramas. You can even have multiple bank accounts added which are in different currencies.

You could modify the code that puts the user through the checkout fairly easily to make it checkout in the currency they have selected, however setting the price in various currencies i think will take a little more doing. If you're handy with C# or willing to fork out some extra $$ i dont see this being a problem either - all it will require is time and effort.

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