Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I just saw a fun new site that offers a service. It`s based in Ireland, and would be easily configured to earn income on a subscription or registration basis. The problem is international customers paying in their native currency, without understanding (or caring about) currency exchange rates and amounts.

I know that e-commerce sites use a variety of shopping cart softwar options. EBay handles currency conversions transparently. Does anyone have any recommendations as to this type of shopping cart? Or, is there a transaction processing service that would allow the customer to register, then be redirected to the processing clearing house to pay (for a fee to the site owner)?

It`d also be nice to know if such a cart or clearing house exists for the very small startup owner, where money is almost non-existent. Is there a way to use one shopping cart or clearing house, then scale up over time, as revenues improve?

Hi Craig,

http://www.e-gold.com/
This site doesn`t do what you are after, it simply sidesteps the whole international currency issue. I plan on using their services in the future, one of the best parts about it, is their fee schedule they’ll charge 1% per transaction, no credit card offers anything anywhere near that low, payment is instantaneous and there are no ‘charge backs’. The only drawback I see is that people still need to get used to it, but if you sell high ticket items and offer them the savings from say Master Cards 3% to them they might decide to take it. I would suggest you use this not instead of credit cards but supplementing them.

Elí

Well, this is an interesting idea (reminds me of when Bette Midler`s contract had a rider that she was to be paid in gold, back during the Carter Administration and crazy inflation!). But, as you point out, it doesn`t really solve the problem.

The problem site wants a simple, fast way to register to a subscription service, with a 1-click payment by typical credit card or PayPal type of thing. Customers in the United States would be distracted by having the monthly or annual price listed in Euros. It`d be nice to have a simple way that the customer could pay in their home country currency, and the shopping cart would handle all conversions and transaction processing invisibly to the customer (and the site-owner).