Shopify Plus Multi-Currency Selector

This highly anticipated development from the global eCommerce heavy-weight, for the moment at least, is only available to Shopify PLUS partners. This said it is Shopify’s intention to role this out to all of their clients down the line.

This article is going to outline the features of Shopify’s new multi currency checkout as well as addressing some frequently asked questions.

First things first – what does selling in multiple currencies mean?

The customer who arrives at the store will have the ability to complete the entire checkout or buyer experience in a currency of their choice. Until now, the customer could only check out in the currency that the store had set up.

The new Shopify multi-currency option adds a number of features to both the customer and vender experience.

Customer Experience

• Prices are set initially by the merchant in their preferred currency
• IP address will indicate where the user is and automatically select the most appropriate currency
• There is a currency selector in the top navigation – when a new currency is selected the page will refresh automatically showing the new currency
• When a new currency is created they are generally friendly and accurately reflect the price in each one of the countries i.e. you will not get peculiar decimals like £85.99 > $109.36 – instead it is rounded appropriately
• The selected currency will flow through the cart experience and once they arrive at the checkout, the currency also remains in this currency – beforehand it would revert back to the vendors default selection
• Discounts are applied in the customers selected currency
• Rates do not update every minute – they are generally pretty stable throughout the day.
• The authorisation on the credit card will come through in the currency the customer has selected, regardless of what currency the card is in.

Merchant Experience

• Merchants can select default from nine different currencies – USD, AUD, CAD, EUR, GBP, HKD, JPY, NZD, SGD and merchants can enable whichever ones they require
• On the orders page there is an indicator showing whether or not the order was multi-currency or not. However the currency displayed to the vendor is the one they selected
• When you click on the details of each order the default is in the currency of the buyer. There is an option to change this into the vendor’s own shop currency
• In the timeline you are able to see all of the conversion rates that have been implemented throughout the process
• In the product description page you can see each one of the different prices associated to that product so that you can judge whether or not the automatic currency selector is sensible

Once setup the multi currency feature is relatively intuitive to use, but getting there is a different kettle of fish. Fortunately Shopify have published a detailed migration guide that is constantly evolving based on customers feedback and lists all of the different setup options and functionality. This being the case I’m not going to try and turn it into something more palatable – apologies if this comes across as a copout, but some things just can’t be shined and its better for everyone to go straight to the source.

If you are a Shopify partner you can now find a development store in your partner dashboard which you can make use of to play around and test some of the newest features.

 

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Multi-Currency FAQs

 

Does the merchant need to update prices in different currencies or does the currency conversion happen automatically?

In this particular release all prices are generated automatically. Shopify takes the prices that the merchant puts in. The merchant sets the Shop currency and all of the prices and then Shopify will apply FX rates and rounding roles to generate a price for every other currency.

 

What if the merchant needs to offer a different price in a different currency instead of automatic conversion – is this possible?

In this particular release that is not possible however Shopify is working towards this in the future. So, currently the prices can only be set in the shop currency and then the automatic conversion is implemented.

There are rounding rules with currency conversion. What are these rules? Does it only apply to the sub total or does it apply to discounts as well?

Rounding rules apply to the specific line items and there are a few options that can be changed per currency. Currently these numbers only round up so as to minimise risk to the merchant. This may change in the future as more is learnt about the strategies that merchants are interested in using. There is no rounding added to totals, it is only at the line item level and it doesn’t apply to Shipping, Discounts or Taxes.

If I wanted to send a refund request through the API, which currency value should I be sending?

You should always use the presented currency used for the particular order.

When will multi-currency be rolled out across all Shopify tiers?

There is no specific release timeline at this point but there is no doubt that Shopify is going to role this out too more plans

Are all the current templates compatible with multi-currency?

Shopify are working with their theme partners to update their code to enable multi-currency option