Online eCommerce has transformed the world into one big marketplace full of growth potential. To compete and thrive in this global market, you need to take your online business beyond borders. Shopify offers multi-currency and international eCommerce features, which guarantee just that.
Imagine there is a family in Tokyo, a customer in London, and a student in Texas; they are all potential customers that represent potential revenue streams. With Shopify multi-currency stores, you can offer the pricing of your products in Yen, pounds, and US dollars.
This will increase the likelihood of purchase because seeing the pricing in their native currency reduces cognitive load and builds trust. With local currency display, stores have seen up to a 40% increase in their international checkouts (Shopify blog, How to Sell Internationally with Shopify).
In this multi-currency implementation guide, we will guide you on how to implement Shopify multi-currency on your store after the necessary homework. Also, what are some advanced considerations, common pitfalls, and how to avoid them, and finally, how can you optimize and expand further?
Importance of Shopify Multi-Currency Support
Adopting Shopify multi-currency stores is a major step in your international eCommerce journey. Here’s how a Shopify multi-currency store is a big yes for your business.
· Seeing product prices in local currency improves customer satisfaction and gives a sense of transparency.
· By offering multiple currencies like EUR, GBP, CAD, and AUD, your business can target high-paying markets like Europe, the UK, Canada, and Australia.
· Local currency pricing is also SEO friendly because it gets aligned with geo-targeted ads.
· It also helps with local regulation compliance by displaying taxes inclusive of VAT in EU countries.
· It makes the overall shopping experience seamless by eliminating confusion and extra steps.
Chapter 1: Necessary Homework
You need to do thorough homework before launching a Shopify multi-currency store. Jumping directly into it without a solid foundation can lead to customer confusion and can be counterproductive for your business. Let’s explore all the things you must do before going ahead.
1. Understanding Your Market
First, you need to study your business data to get complete insight. By using Shopify analytics, Google Analytics, and social media, find out where most of your traffic is originating. Then you must identify which regions or countries have engagement but have a low conversion rate. Once you identify this, you have basically identified your targeted currency expansion region or regions.
2. Prioritizing the Currencies
It might be tempting to include all major currencies in your store right away, but that messes up your financial reporting. Instead, choose around 3 major currencies based on the research done in the previous step.
3. Select the Right Shopify Plan for Your Business
If you are on the Shopify basic plan, then you only get currency display on a separate domain, which is not seamless at all. To use the native Shopify multi-currency feature, you must upgrade your plan. So, based on your business needs, see which advanced features are right for your business and opt for them.
4. Payment Provider Compatibility
Probably the most important technical homework you need to do is ensuring payment provider compatibility. Whatever your payment gateway is, whether Shopify Payments, PayPal, or any other, it must be configured to receive payments in multiple currencies.
5. Shopify Payments
Shopify Payments, with its automatic conversion, is the most integrated solution. You just have to verify that it is supported for your country. It works simply: your customer buys in their local currency, and the amount gets credited to your account in your bank’s currency.
6. Third-Party Gateways
If you are using third-party payment gateways like PayPal or Stripe, then you need to separately configure them for your desired currencies. Each third-party gateway comes with its own settings.
Chapter 2: Step-by-step Implementation Guide
Once you are through with your planning stage, now is the time to configure your store. The following are 4 simple steps to do it.
Enable Currencies in Shopify Admin
In your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Markets. Here, go to the “Currencies” section under “Domains and languages”. Once you add all the currencies you desire, Shopify will calculate the exchange rates automatically.
Configure Your Payment Provider
Next, you have to configure your payment provider, either Shopify Payments or a third-party. For Shopify Payments, go to Settings > Payments > Shopify Payments > Manage. Here, find currencies and enable all your desired currencies. Shopify will take care of all currency conversions.
For third-party payments, log in to your provider’s account and enable required currencies. Currencies enabled here must match your Shopify settings.
Adjust Rounding Rules
Without adjusting your rounding rules, your $19.99 can turn into €17.42321, which looks unprofessional. So, to keep your pricing psychologically appealing, Shopify gives you an option to round them to the nearest 0.99, 0.95, or 0.00, etc. The rounding option for each currency can be found in your currency settings.
Customize Currency Conversion for Better User Experience
You can customize your currency conversion to make it more accessible and professional. For example, you can add a currency selector in your theme. This is typically added to the header or footer. You can enable this by going to Online Store > Themes > Customize. This enables seamless and quick currency switching. Or you can also enable geolocation-based pop-ups. This feature can be enabled by Shopify apps or advanced theme configuration. After enabling, your users get a pop-up message based on their IP location, saying whether they want to convert to their local currency.
Chapter 3: Advanced Considerations
Now we will discuss some advanced considerations for your Shopify multi-currency store to take you beyond the default settings.
Transparent Communication on Transaction Charges
Some banks might charge conversion fees. You might have converted your price correctly and fairly, but you need to be upfront about these bank charges. Adding a note like “Final amount can vary based upon your bank’s exchange rate” promotes transparency and builds your customer’s confidence.
Localized Marketing
For successful international eCommerce, you need to consider things beyond just currency conversion on your Shopify store. Consider the following points, for example:
· Do some research about the local market so you can find out whether €49.99 should be your standard price, or would €47.99 be more competitive in the European market? Optimizing your prices with respect to the market instead of just doing a simple conversion gives you a big advantage.
· Along with price conversion, also provide information such as titles, descriptions, and product manuals in the local language. For this purpose, you can use apps like Weglot or Langify.
· Make use of culturally relevant imagery and messages to make sure your product marketing is resonating with locals.
Customs and Taxes
There are some complexities when it comes to international eCommerce, like customs clearance and taxes.
· You, being a seller, are responsible for international tax laws compliance. For selling products in Europe, you have to comply with VAT, and in Australia and Canada, GST. You can either use Shopify’s built-in tax settings or you can use a dedicated tax automation app. Some famous apps include Avalara or TaxJar, which can handle all calculations automatically.
· Usually, customers are responsible for import duty and taxes in their country, but this needs to be declared up front. This will promote transparency, reduce surprises, and reduce the support inquiries load.
Shipping
You can use Shopify’s shipping profiles to set up region-specific shipping rates. Offering clear and competitive international shipping rates increases customer trust and reduces cart abandonment rates.
Chapter 4: Post-Launch Monitoring and Optimization
Your job is not finished at launch; you need to do rigorous testing, monitoring, and optimization to reap the full benefits of Shopify multi-currency inclusion in your store.
Testing
Before enabling Shopify multi-currency on your store, it’s best to test the entire customer experience.
· Browse your store by switching to each currency one by one.
· Just like a customer would, add products to your cart and proceed to checkout.
· During this process, ensure that the correct currency is being displayed every step of the way.
· It is best that you try transactions in all currencies if possible.
Performance Monitoring
Use analytics tools to analyse the following:
1. Analyse conversion rates by country and currency to see if sales are increasing in your targeted regions.
2. Analyse your average order value by currency and see how it differs from your home currency.
3. Look for spikes in cart abandonment rates for different regions. They might indicate pricing or shipping rate issues.
Optimize and Expand
Analyse your data carefully and make educated moves for your business. Expand your business into countries and currencies that are performing well. To grow your business, research and identify new currencies to add.
Common Shopify Multi-Currency Challenges and Solutions
There are several challenges that can be faced, especially by beginners.
· Currency fluctuations can affect your profit margins. Make use of hedging apps or use manual rates.
· Some older Shopify themes don’t support currency selectors. You can resolve this by upgrading to a Shopify theme 2.0. You can also hire a dedicated developer who can help you integrate a custom switcher.
· Not all third-party apps support multi-currency. Test all apps carefully in advance and only choose compatible ones.
· Multi-currency bookkeeping can be difficult and tricky. Make use of accounting integrations like Xero or QuickBooks.
Start Selling Globally Today
Expansion into the international market is a must for your growing business. With a Shopify multi-currency store, you can tap foreign markets full of potential revenue. It’s all about making the shopping experience seamless and transparent for your customer to earn their trust. This leads to a high conversion rate with increased revenue. This article gives a complete guide on how to implement Shopify multi-currency store for your store the right way. So open new doors for your business today and start offering multiple currencies on your Shopify store.
