E-commerce can be difficult. You don’t have the same presence as a brick and mortar building. Therefore, you have to be smarter about how you operate. The benefit that all e-commerce stores have is that they can operate on a global scale with much less difficulty. However, this brings with it its own set of challenges, and issues to try and navigate.
Accepting multiple currencies is a fundamental principle to try and decide on when you want to work outside of your country of origin. The Internet is not limited to one place, and with the world getting more connected every year, you do have to think about whether or not you can work with multiple currencies. What we are going to do is take a look at why this can be useful for your WooCommerce shop.
No More Foreign Transaction Fees
Something that a lot of businesses don’t think about is foreign transaction fees. They’re not something which is well advertised by any means, but they will make an appearance quite quickly. Basically, to pay for something in a different currency, you have to either pay a small extra charge for the conversion, or there is automatically a fee for a foreign transaction.
Customers are not going to like this, which is why it can be very important to work with multiple currencies, because that removes the problem. Your WooCommerce shop no longer has to use the transaction fees, which means that prices can stay at a more affordable level, and so you will have more customers. Because there are so many businesses in the world that do work with multiple currencies, you will lose customers quite quickly if you are one of the few organisations that don’t.
No More Chargebacks
People don’t like extra charges. It’s a fairly reasonable gripe to be honest. They don’t want to have to deal with an extra cost simply because they are in a different country. It’s like when you go online and buy something, and the import fees are incredibly high. Now, you will pay these fees, because you understand that principle, but when it’s a charge you don’t understand, you may be inclined to contact the company and argue with them.
For a business perspective, this is not good. Not only are you damaging your reputation as a company, but you may have to wind up paying the charge anyway, which then means your business suffers. If you work with multiple currencies, these extra hidden charges don’t occur, so the problem never exists.
Customer Loyalty Increases
Let’s talk about customer loyalty for a second. It’s a very powerful resource. When you have loyal customers, you have a business. You often have repeat business. But when loyalty is low, customers will just go somewhere else. They don’t have a tie or a connection to your enterprise, because there is another company that provides what you do but better.
If you work with multiple currencies, then customers in other countries feel like they have been provided for. This inspires loyalty. They start to cultivate the image that you are a caring and considerate business which operates in multiple currencies for the mutual benefit of both itself and its customers. You inspire loyalty because you make it look like you care. And obviously you do, but you have to prove that.
No More Abandoned Carts
Here is something you might not know about your online shopping. A lot of people will keep adding things to the shopping cart. They are happy to buy these products, right up until they get to the checkout. Then they are presented with foreign prices. At this point, around 15% of all customers will abandon shopping carts. They will just close the tab and go away. You have lost those customers because they don’t want to have to bother with working out foreign prices. Because they do not know what the exchange rate is on their money, they don’t know if you are charging them a fair price or an extortionately high one.
Now, really and truly, this is not a position you want to be in. You don’t want customers to stop purchasing goods at the critical stage. You want them to complete the transaction, because that means that you have made money and they can have their products. Multiple currencies will make sure that this happens.
Market Differentiation
From a business perspective, having an advantage over a competitor is always a good thing. Market differentiation basically suggests that if you can operate in multiple currencies and your rival cannot, then you have gained a tactical advantage within your industry. Foreign customers will come to you, not your arch nemesis. That’s something you cannot afford to be without. Because if all you have to work on are the same merits as your competitor, a customer will go either way. You have to make sure you have every edge possible to succeed. If you have multiple currencies, when you automatically have a bigger market than people who don’t. There really isn’t anything more to it than that.
So to conclude, there are a lot of benefits for any WooCommerce shop to work in multiple currencies. It gives you an edge that you didn’t have previously. Every business needs a selling point. They need to have something unique to them to overcome the competition. For you, it may be that you can sell globally. Your marketplace just got 100 times bigger than anything you’ve ever had before. Your potential is now limitless. But if you don’t have multiple currencies, you will be stuck in a lower tier of e-commerce. Whether it is appeasing customer loyalty, or working to make sure that no matter what, you can serve anyone who comes through your door, multiple currencies is the way to go. And if you haven’t made that transition, and you haven’t started to work with multiple currencies, you’re doing something wrong.