How can I manage AUD to USD currency conversion on my website after introducing Markets?

[Monettex]

Hello,

So prior to the rollout of Shopify Markets my website operated in the following way:

I am based in Australia and most of my customers are in USA, I set my prices in AUD but use a plug in to display my prices in USD so my customers can understand them easily. Whenever customers would purchase from me it always showed them USD even during checkout, but then it all got converted into AUD somehow behind the scenes and I always got AUD(which I prefer because this is the currency of my country).

After Markets were introduced:

The PayPal payment method stopped working for my USA customers because for some reason the currency conversion for PayPal stopped happening. In the USA Market the USD currency was selected by default. 

I want my customers to see and checkout with USD as before, but I want it to get converted to AUD behind the scenes as it previously had so I get AUD. With the introduction of Markets is this no longer an option? I know I can change the currency in the USA Market to AUD but then at checkout my customers see AUD and it turns them off from buying because it looks like price has increased.

I was just wondering if anyone knows of any workaround?

I do not want to change the local currency of my store to USD.

I just want things to work the way they worked before when there was no Markets. 

[Monettex]

Also, I know you may be thinking "Markets has been around for a while now, why are you just encountering this issue now?"

And the reason is , the issue has been happening all along, but it just took me this long to figure out what was causing the problem on my storefront. I have called both PayPal and Shopify, have been in discussion with various assistants for months. I have recorded videos of the problem, got my customers to send me screenshots of the PayPal not working for them.  So I have been trying to solve this for a long time. It was only recently that the assistant that was helping me was away and someone new looked at my problem and finally figured it out. 

[coleatkinson]

Hi there - just to clarify, you want your Australian customers to check out in AUD, you want your US customers to check out in USD, and you want your payouts all to be in AUD, is that correct?

Is this specifically happening with the Paypal payouts?

[Monettex]

The majority of my customers are in US, I would like them to see the prices in USD, but then I want everything to get converted into AUD so I get paid in AUD.  (It would be great if my AUD customers could check out in AUD, but if they can't that's ok because I only have a few, almost all of my customers are from US)

It used to all work this way, but after Shopify introduced Markets, PayPal no longer works. 

The reason PayPal no longer works is because the US Market is set to USD, so the conversion from USD to AUD is no longer happening and it makes PayPal not work.

I can change the US Market to AUD(and PayPal will work) but then at the very end after my customers hit checkout it shows them AUD instead of USD, just on this very last step and they think price jumped up and it deters them from buying. 

[coleatkinson]

Just to double check that I have this correct - you Paypal payments are being taken in USD, but then those funds are being stored as USD in Paypal? Whereas you want them converted to AUD within Paypal to receive your funds? Sorry for the questions, just trying to identify the issue, and whether it is to do with Shopify's payout currency or Paypal's.

[Monettex]

So the home currency of my store is AUD and I set all my prices in AUD, but I have a plugin that displays the prices in my shop in a selected currency. So the USA customers would see price in USD and they would pay with PayPal(I am pretty sure PayPal charged them in AUD) but the important thing is that they would see USD amounts all the way through checkout. I would get AUD coming into my PayPal.

Now with the new Markets that Shopify has added, if I want this to occur and for PayPal to work I have to set the USA market to AUD, then PayPal works, and my plug in shows them USD prices, but the problem is at the very end when they hit checkout it shows them AUD(it used to never do this before Markets) so they think the price is increasing at checkout and most don't end up checking out because of this. I know that the price is not actually changing, it is just simply showing them the AUD equivalent at the end during checkout, but many people don't understand currencies and it just scares them the price is going up.

[coleatkinson]

If you offer AUD for your Australia market, and USD for your US market, Paypal will collect the payment in each of those respective currencies for customers in each country.

It sounds as though something may have changed within your Paypal account i.e. you want to take US customer payments in USD (which is happening correctly), but Paypal is holding that money in your PP account in USD, when in fact you want this to be in AUD. I understand this is frustrating, but I think it is a coincidence that it coincides with Markets - I don't think that is the cause of the issue. You should be able to collect payments in USD on site but then have Paypal deposit/payout your funds in AUD.

[Monettex]

The money doesn't make it to PayPal, it just doesn't let my customers complete the order. I did try contacting PayPal but they said they do not author the PayPal plugin for Shopify therefore can not do anything on their end. So I am not really sure what else to do to try and fix this. At this point I just gave up and removed PayPal as a payment option (since it doesn't work for my US customers and just frustrates people when they try to use it and it doesn't work).