When is the industry going to switch it's "STANDARD" tender to EURO?? It's getting pretty pathetic and I have very little confidence in the $US. It stinks when you are making units of currency which are now as a standard LOWER then most other units you would compare to. Doesn't make sense and ALL of us are loosing money. I want a laptop but if I convert I'm losing 8$ on the 100. So I'm losing ~120 on my 1500$ laptop. This is the internet people and we can charge any denomination we want. Most people aren't in the US anyways but are well accustomed to switching currencies into USD to do business online. Another reason to use the euro I believe is that it will only get stronger especially if some countries start paying in Euro instead of US for Oil. That's a major reason the US is still where it is. I think the US is in for a bumpy ride and not sure why we as the directory industry have to go along for it? Also wrote a post on my new blog about it here.
The UK Pound is strong as we brits have a reasonable economy. I do agree about the US $, perhaps some should increase prices. It suits me fine i earn £ in my job and now im getting more $$$ to spend on my directories
Agreed. I have a friend from the UK, well a few of them. We started a project about a year ago on a .co.uk domain. All fine and dandy with me, but as I became familiar with US vs UK conversions. I quickly learned 1£ = $2. When I started looking over our prices at 35£, I was a victim of sticker shock after conversion. Not to say, our product is not worth 70$, but I still think sticker shock gets a lot of our US customers and we lose sales. However, our UK crowd is strong and 80% of our business is derived from there. In the near future, I hope to display both currencies and their conversion beside price, but yet to figure that out. SO the moral of the story is, if 90% of business is US based, switching to £ could harm your ROI severely. That goes with any currency. In a perfect world, if you want to target other countries you should display all converted prices for that currency. <--clearly my opinion
I have actually been thinking about charging in Euros for some time, is this a good time to switch anyway?
Forget Euros as a standard currency if you deal with customers in the United States. If you want more US dollars, just increase your rates. And if everyone changed to Euros and this currency went into a decline, would you change back to US dollars? I don't think so. Currencies are cyclical and so they will remain.
I think US dollar is way to go as US submitters will not like to pay in EURO as it will cost more (rate + fees). Also submitters from Europe will also prefer USD as it is cheaper for them right now. This is actually happening in real world as Boeing is Killing Airbus as it is cheaper to buy US made stuff.
Canadian Dollar would be better right now.. Higher then the US, but lower then Euros. Although Canada traffic isnt usually the top 1 and 2 on the traffic charts.
In the medium to long term the USD is the preferred option and not least because in the majority of transactions the dollar is the standard You have to make a provision for currency fluctuations
I'm in the US if you try to charge me anything other than a USD I'll probably go elsewhere which I think is the general consensus in the US.
True, the Euro has been gaining strength against the US Dollar. Someone might pay $1500 for your computer, but they won't pay $1500 Euros ($2000 USD) for the same computer, just because of a currency conversion. The value of the product is still the same no matter what country you are from. It's more about what your customers perceive to be a good value, rather than simple currency conversions that could increase profits. This shows the increasing strength of the Euro vs. USD over past 120 days.
Most business online (at least between webmasters) is conducted in USD, doesn't seem to matter where the 2 parties come from, they will nearly always trade in USD. Being UK based, the strong pound is a real problem for me as the vast majority of my business is done in USD as that's what everyone expects, and I'm now getting much less in the conversion than I was a year or two ago, worryingly it doesn't look like the slide will stop either, I can see £1 soon being worth $2.50, which will be close to crippling from my point of view but great for those trading in the other direction. The problem is there is no other currency that could be considered as 'global' as the USD, it will take something major to shift attitudes towards some other currency.
I agree. Banking your USD in the UK can leave the bank a little empty with the current conversion rate. Uploading funds and going on a spending spree can however give you more spending than you expected. It works both ways in currency conversion.
Dollar will continue to dive with the low interest and that ever growing country's deficit. Even Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen refuses to sign anymore contracts in dollars. http://www.celebcrust.com/gisele-bundchen-rejects-dollar-20.html Dollar was once the most accepted currency worldwide. Its matter of time before people start rejecting them.
So lets follow a Super Model (IQ of a 6 year old). The US trade deficit is going down for last couple of months and reason is lower Dollar value as US is exporting more. If USD goes 25% down Europes/Asia's export market will go down the tubes.
But the crux of the problem still being, till the time companies like Paypal, google checkout, 2CO and others run the market, the $ollar is here to stay on the net, unless some UK companies overshadows the market, or as we have a growing wallet365.com in the local market! rest assured we will talk $, walk $ and eat $ M.