One
of the best things about doing business on the Internet is that
you have the whole world to market your products or services
to. The reality is that most of your customers will
come from the US, Canada, Australia, Great Britain and a few
other European countries... but if you are prepared to fulfill
them, you may get orders from the remotest regions of the world!
One of the problems
of doing international trade is that at times your customer
has no idea what dollar value they are about to commit to. For
example, if you live in Canada and are doing business with a
US based company, you generally know that for every hundred
US dollars you are spending 147 Canadian dollars. But what about
if you are going to do business with a company based in Australia?
Or one based in England? Or what about France. Do YOU know the
conversion rates?
On the reverse
side of the coin, say you own a Canadian company and are selling
your products or services in Canadian dollars. A large number
of your customers will likely be coming from the US. If this
is the case, a huge benefit to your American customers
is the fact that for them, the price is greatly reduced.
Instead of paying $100 for your product, they pay only $68!
They are getting more than a 30% discount without having to
do anything... and you may want them to be able to see this
for themselves!
Depending on what
products or services you are offering, a currency converter
on your site could be a very nice customer service tool.
If you have the
skills, you can write yourself a small conversion program using
JavaScript. The problem with this is that whenever currency
rates fluctuate, you will have to manually go back in and change
all the rates. This is a lot of work... and since I preach automation,
automation, automation... I'm suggesting you not do it this
way.
What I do suggest
is looking at a couple of the currency conversion programs currently
available to you. Listed below are three websites that provide
free currency converters that will keep visitors at your site,
rather than linking them out, this is very important. You want
to retain visitors at your site so that you can lead them to
making a purchase decision. You do not want them linking out
to a different site, as they may never come back!
Xenon Laboratories
has a free currency converter program for use by webmasters.
For general information on their program go to
http://www.xe.net/map/#webmasters If you want to get their
free currency converter go to http://www.xe.net/ucc/customize.htm
Textor Webmasters
Currency Converter, located at http://cconv.textor.com/
is a nifty little JavaScript converter with easy to follow instructions.
Best of all, it's free!
At Oanda you can
build yourself a customizable currency converter for free by
giving them a site link and allowing banner ads on your conversion
page... if you do not want the banner ads, you can get the service
for a small monthly fee. Check it out at http://www.oanda.com/site/ccc_intro.shtml
Important
Note: Having a currency converter is not as critical
for most US based businesses generating sales in US dollars.
The reason for this is that most businesses worldwide consider
the US dollar to be international, it is almost standard. So
if you run acompany that does business internationally, you
should look at getting something that will convert a wide range
of currency, and not necessarily just to and from the US dollar.
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR: Derek Gehl specializes in teaching real people how
to start profitable Internet businesses that make $100,000 to
$2.5 Million (or more) per year. To get instant access to all
his most profitable marketing campaigns, strategies, tools,
and resources that he's used to grow $25 into over $60 Million
in online sales, visit: http://www.marketingtips.com/t.cgi/892189
Article
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