Multiple currencies without Shopify Payments

[Usernameee]

Hello 

I would like to sell in multiple currencies. I'm currently only selling in USD. My business is based in Finland so I'm not able to use Shopify Payments, which is a huge problem. Are there any other ways to have multiple currencies at checkout. I have been thinking about creating additional stores for other currencies like EUR and GBP, but that sounds pretty complex having to pay for multiple Shopify plans and apps, managing orders and other reasons.

Are there plans to make Shopify Payments available in Finland? I would be very interested.

I have also applied for Shopify Markets. Is it going to be available for businesses in countries where Shopify Payments isn't supported.

Thanks

[Maz · Accepted solution]

Hey @Usernameee.

I can appreciate why this is an important question for you, as I am sure you would like to branch out to other regions without having to pay for other plans or apps. At Shopify, we are always exploring new regions to launch Shopify payments in. Finland being one of those regions. I can not say for certain whether this will happen in the near future as launching Shopify Payments in a new country takes time. We need to ensure we are legally allowed to launch in specifics countries. We welcome feedback such as yours, so I have gone ahead and added your feedback to the already existing feature request for adding Shopify payments in Finland. Hopefully, the more feedback we get on this, the more likely it could be added in the future. Shopify is always changing and adding new features, so I wanted to say thank you for your important feedback, here.

As you have already mentioned, you have possibly explored using some apps or even opening up another Shopify store(s) for the currencies you wish to sell in, I wanted to touch on those points and explore that some more.

• If you wanted to, go ahead and open up another store(s) you may be eligible for the multi-store discount depending on your current plan. I would suggest checking your store's Analytics page and sessions by location section to check where your visitors are coming from. If a merchant meets the eligibility requirements for this discount, then the discount would be as follows: Store A (Primary account) would be on our $79 or $299 plan. Every store thereafter would be on the plan directly below it (i.e if you select the $299 plan, then every store thereafter would be $79) and would reap all the features of the plan that store A is subscribed to. (Ie reports, lower credit card/transaction fees, etc). In order to get this set up it would require getting in touch with our billing department, so if you do go this route, you can always reach out to our live support at this link here.

• You could also use a third party app on your store. We have a lot of options here on our app store worth having a look at. With that being said, it is worth noting that these apps will mostly just display a different currency only up until the checkout point. Currently, there is no real way to truly sell in multiple currencies without Shopify Payments. However, if you would like to explore apps further, here are some of my recommendations below:

          1. BEST Currency Converter

          2. MLV: Auto Currency Switcher

In regard to your last questions about Shopify Markets, this is still in early access, and we cannot provide estimates/timelines on when merchants will get access. Shopify Markets will be available to all merchants globally, however, some features will only be available to merchants using Shopify Payments (multi-currency, local payment methods at checkout, international pricing).

How are things going with the rest of your website? If you're looking for the next steps to grow your business further, you may be interested in our video courses on Shopify Learn! This is a free resource for you to learn about anything from marketing to store design. I highly recommend taking advantage of this as you'll find many tips and strategies from experts in different fields. As always, should any questions arise, be sure to reply here!

[Pavils]

Hello Maz,

I have the same issues with lack of multiple currencies for my store, since Shopify Payments is not supported in Latvia. Is there a plan to implement Shopify Payments in Latvia any time soon? Or should I look for alternative ways for now?

Many thanks in advance!

[Maz]

Hey @Pavils!

Thanks for reaching out on this thread!

I can appreciate you wanting to have multiple currencies for your customers worldwide, and how this would be of a major benefit to your business. For the moment, I cannot give a timeline of if or when Shopify Payments will be available in your region. What I can do is provide this feedback for our developers as something to consider in the future.

The only workarounds would be the ones I mentioned in the thread above, however for now I have added this feedback for review.

Apart from that, how is the rest of things going in your business?

[M7LE]

Can you help me when I want to change the currency of my store I get this message
((You made your first sale. Contact support to change your currency.))

[Maz]

Hi @M7LE!

Thank you for reaching out on this thread!

Currency can only be changed by a member of our support staff, so you will need to contact live support for this request here at this link. We are unable to access accounts from the forums here ourselves, however our team would be more than happy to help you with this!

A couple of things to note before you change your store currency:

Product Prices: These will not exchange in value so e.g., if it was $10 before it will be €10 now, so you'll need to look over these and find the exchange rate and edit prices.

Reports: Any orders, reports, and things of that nature will now be incorrect as they will have the new currency symbol but as $1 does not equal €1 etc. they won't be correct as you look back. These can be important for filing taxes or doing accounts etc. So make sure you export what you need for your records before we make the change.

Gift Cards: If there were any issued and say they had $100 on there, they'd now be worth 100 of the new currency - again, not equal in real exchange value.

I don't know if you have anything planned for BFCM this year, but now is the time to make some preparations. BFCM is one of the biggest sales weekends of the year and sees the start of the holiday season as well. Every year, my go-to is this BFCM Checklist. It allows me to make sure that I am making the best use of my time and resources, and it really helps take the pressure off by starting early. It is well worth the read should you be interested! Let me know if you have any other questions!

[SoniaLin]

Hi Maz,

I have the same issue here! I would like to know when the Shopify Payment will be supported in my country Taiwan? The currency issue at checkout really confused our customers.

[Maz]

Hi @SoniaLin!

Thanks for reaching out about Shopify payments.

I understand that you'd like to know if Shopify Payments will be launching in Taiwan. Our developers are always looking to expand the locations where Shopify Payments are available, but there is not estimated time frame for this. Likewise, I will be adding this feedback for our developers to review, so while it is not an option right now it may become one in the future. Your feedback is greatly appreciated on this. May I ask what it is you like about Shopify Payments, and would prefer to not use a third party gateway?

Have you looked into other payment gateways for your region for the time being? Here is a list of providers in your region. One provider I might recommend and that is quite popular among our merchants is 2Checkout here! Are you currently using any apps for your currency conversion? 

I hope the above has been illuminating, in the meantime I'd love to hear more about your plans for this quarter, are there any other issues you're experiencing with your store or any advice you might need?

[Thomas91]

Hello Maz, 

We have Shopify Markets installed, and currently run two markets, in Hong Kong and Singapore. (Hong Kong was our original home market that we used to install Shopify; and Singapore is an additional market we added using Shopify Markets.)

We’re having massive issues with how Shopify handles customer payments from any additional market (in our case Singapore) outside of our home market (in our case Hong Kong).

Shopify Markets allows us to show prices to Singapore customers in Singapore Dollars (SGD), and also allows customers to checkout using SGD. 

BUT, without telling the customer and without an option for the merchant to choose otherwise, Shopify does a Dynamic Currency Conversion behind the scenes, so the money is converted to Hong Kong Dollars (HKD) before it enters the merchant’s payout account. 

Many banks (DBS, HSBC…) and credit card companies (Visa, MasterCard…) around the world charge customers an admin fee for using Dynamic Currency Conversion. Which means that our customers are checking their credit card statements and then becoming very angry (and rightly so) that the price that was shown to them at checkout is not what is on their credit card statements, instead it is a few percent higher. It also leads to abandoned carts, because the credit card OTPs that customers are receiving show amounts that are different from what is shown at checkout.

We’ve reached out to Shopify support several times about this, and they are saying it is because each Shopify account can only hold one currency in the payout account, so all other currencies are automatically converted into your home market currency. They say they have no control over what banks charge customers as admin fees.

The whole way Shopify has set up payments for Shopify Markets makes zero sense to us. If customers in every market outside your home market are charged hidden fees by their bank every time they buy on your site, they are going to get angry, ask for refunds, and never come back. It’s such a bad customer experience that destroys any trust.

We are already exploring contingency solutions, such as alternative payment gateways such as Stripe or PayPal. But the way that Shopify locks down the checkout process, and in some cases doesn’t allow alternative payment gateways in markets that have Shopify Payments available, does not make these solutions easy to implement.

We simply don’t understand why Shopify doesn’t allow merchants to accept multiple currencies into a payout account, without automatically converting the currencies first. So that customers aren’t subject to hidden Dynamic Currency Conversion fees that they rightly never expected to pay.

And Dynamic Currency Conversion fees are not a unique fee by Singapore banks either. It is common practice for most banks Globally. It doesn’t make any sense why Shopify would build the Shopify Markets payment system in this way, and not offer merchants an option to turn it off.

[Maz]

Hey @Thomas91!

Thanks for reaching out, and I really appreciate you sharing this detailed feedback with me.

When you sell in markets with local currencies, your online store prices are converted to your customer's currency. The prices in your store change automatically with market exchange rates. That being said, I can see why this might be an annoyance for your customers while purchasing on your store and for your business too.

As I mentioned, this is great feedback and not the first on this topic, so I thank you for providing this. I have now added this as a use case with our developers so that they can review this, and we might see some adjustments in the future. If any adjustments are made, then you will see it first here on our Changelog.

Aside from your feedback, how is everything else going with your store? Is there any marketing you'd like to discuss?

[Thomas91]

Hi Maz,

Thank you for getting back to me.

I hope that Shopify understands how much of a flaw this is. Just imagine that you were shopping at a store that shows in your local currency, and you finally checkout with something you like. Turns out you are charged 2.8% extra. How much of a deal breaker is it?

I am pretty sure that my team is not the team asking for help on this subject, and we are not the only merchant that is hindered by this problem. Shopify Markets' idea is to allow merchants to sell Global and customers to pay Local. Yet, avoiding currency conversion or allowing multiple currencies seems to me something that needs to be taken care of before launching it.

[VintagelessBags]

I could not have write it in a better way, and just want to express that for sure many of us have the same issue. Thank you Thomas

[Thomas91]

Seems like everyone in Shopify are sorry, but no one can help. Do you get what I mean?

It always surprises me that they would rather spend time on functions that only benefit the tech team, but they seem to keep forgetting about the merchants or customers that are actually using it.

All I have to say is a great job, Shopify!

[zamson]

Thanks for bringing this into the light, also having complaints from customers. Can't believe that it's been engineered this way.

[Thomas91]

I feel your pain, and I am glad that we are alone in this problem.

Let's say Shopify has done a great job in forcing merchants to open a separate Shopify store if the merchant wishes to do their business outside of their base.

Who cares about that extra 69 USD, right?

But people who share this thought obviously have not used many apps to operate his/her site. They have no idea to run an additional store means you have to be a legal entity, in other words, a legit company, if you so choose to use Shopify Payment. Just imagine the cost to re-install the themes, tech stack, back office operation or even payment gateway if you are not using Shopify Payment as your payment gateway.

Shopify Market is just a half-baked product, and with such a currency setting, it completely defeats its purpose of "Merchant sells Global, and Customer buys Local". All I can say is well done, Shopify.

I can foresee customer service that will reply to this and say they are sorry and ask us to be patient.

Here at Shopify, everyone is sorry, but no one is here to help. Well done! Great job indeed!

[Thomas91]

I feel your pain, and I am glad that we are not alone in this problem.

Let's say Shopify has done a great job in forcing merchants to open a separate Shopify store if the merchant wishes to do their business outside of their base.

Who cares about that extra 69 USD, right?

But people who share this thought obviously have not used many apps to operate his/her site. They have no idea to run an additional store means you have to be a legal entity, in other words, a legit company, if you so choose to use Shopify Payment. Just imagine the cost to re-install the themes, tech stack, back office operation or even payment gateway if you are not using Shopify Payment as your payment gateway.

Shopify Market is just a half-baked product, and with such a currency setting, it completely defeats its purpose of "Merchant sells Global, and Customer buys Local". All I can say is well done, Shopify.

I can foresee customer service that will reply to this and say they are sorry and ask us to be patient.

Here at Shopify, everyone is sorry, but no one is here to help. Well done! Great job indeed!

[Mattematissen]

Hi!

Jumping on this thread as I have the exact same issue living in Norway. I'm currently building our new site in Shopify and with some experience from previous projects, I figured that the approach of having separate stores for different currencies is the best option and have a couple of questions related to setting this up:

- Once we've set up the Norwegian site selling in NOK, can we duplicate the site and do the necessary changes to sell in USD and again for EUR?

- We'd like our customers to meet a pop-up with a region selector when visting our site www.tides.no and depending on the selection redirecting them to www.tides.no/no, www.tides.no/eu or www.tides.no/us. How can we do this?

- Is there a way to sync the inventory across the stores? All products are likely to be shipped from the same location so this would be a nice feature.

Thanks!

[0Xyn6c]

So you're telling me I have spent every free hour of the past nine months building an international webstore selling goods to customers abroad, but that there is no native way for me to display prices in customers' national currency or allow them to pay in their own currency? All this simply because you did not launch Shopify Payments in my country?

Do you know how confusing and unprofessional it looks to display prices in one currency and suddenly force them to pay in another at checkout?! Do you know how backwards it looks to force international shoppers to pay in my tiny country's rinky-dink national currency?! What customer would ever do this? Would you?!

This is completely and utterly unacceptable. If you can't offer full and viable solutions to your customers to properly do e-commerce in their country, then you shouldn't launch in that country at all. I know you will say something like "We believe we have viable product for users in countries without Shopify Payments to do e-commerce". No - you don't. How can I possibly have a successful e-commerce website that competes with other international competitors if I can't take payments in customers' currency? And again, who wants to shop and buy in my currency? Wouldn't you be frightened as a buyer if you wanted to buy a sweatshirt for $75 and then at checkout the value suddenly turns into 1,762.13 in a currency you've never even heard of?! 

Insanely pissed about this.

[JakubRucka1]

Hello @Maz,

my store is located in Slovakia and it is not a supported region for Shopify payments. My payment provider is Stripe which enables payments in different currencies. May it be implemented and connected with my online store or Shopify still accepts only Shopify payments for having checkout in different currencies?

Hope to hear from you soon

Jakub

[EagleHunted]

Hey @JakubRucka1 & @Maz 

I've the same problem My payment provider is Stripe, which allows for payments in various currencies. Can it be integrated and connected with my online store, or does Shopify only accept Shopify payments for checkout in different currencies? Would adding a Stripe-embedded checkout resolve this issue? I've a high bounce rate because when a customer from the EU, Canada, France,etc visit my website they see the prices in their local currency but when they finally reach out to the Checkout the currency reverts back to the US dollar and they abandon their purchase , How i can fix this issue ? Can it be fixed if i Changed my Checkout page from shopify to Stripe?

[ishaashar]

Hi Maz, Even We are facing same issue. My company is based in India. Because of this we are not able to fully migrate from Magento to Shopify. Can you help on by when this can be done in India?

[ahmad_al_hamwi]

@Maz @Shopify 

Kindly advise how we can better approach this issue now. As I can see, lots of merchants have the same issue, trying to set up local currency check outs without shopify payments, being said that shopify payment is not available in that region. 

1- The first solution of multiple stores, with discount, is not available anymore, as support is not able to provide the discount for multiple stores anymore. Please let me know if am wrong here, as I tried connecting with the support twice on this matter. 

2- There should be a way wither to let customer chek out on payment provider according to their region, which can solve the issue, or allow the markets conversion and priving to be active on other payment providers. For example, Stripe allows check out using +150 currencies, but the limitation comes from shopify it self. 

After reading too much on the topic, I think shopify will be losing international merchants to other providers such as Woocommerce as they do not have this limitation. That being said, we would do the same as its a huge market that we are loosing. Therefore, kindly advise if there will be any near future implementation in this regard. 

[Maz]

Hey, @ahmad_al_hamwi!

Thanks for sharing your feedback on this thread.

At this moment in time, multi – currency checkout is still only available to merchants where Shopify Payments is available this is because we need to ensure we are legally allowed to launch in specifics countries.

In response to your first question, our multi – store discount has since been sunset as of last year, so that is no longer an option to receive this discount, however it does not prevent you from operating multiple stores.

Secondly, depending on where you are located, you can check which payment providers are available to you by selecting your region on this page here.  Are you suggesting as a solution to enable the conversion of prices and currencies for different markets on other payment providers like Stripe does? Let me know!

Finally, Shopify is constantly working to improve the platform and introduce new features in response to feedback from merchants and the needs of the market. Although I don't have access to specific details about upcoming changes, I very much value this feedback as it is important. For any updates or new changes, please keep an eye out on our Announcements page here or our Changelog related to international currency support.

[geektees]

• So I've had the same problem for a long time here in Thailand where Shopify payments also isn't yet supported like in so many countries (will it ever be!? I doubt it!). In the end, I chose the following solution that I'll share with you here, it's basically the multiple store option but I'll share which 3rd party app I used to achieve it if it helps anyone...
  
  So my USA version is geek-t-shirts.com This is the mother ship that ranks highly in Google USA for my main keywords and gets some hits internationally each day now as well.
  
  Then I installed the app Advanced Store Localization which has some cool features. Unfortunately, it can't change the currency depending on location without Shopify Payments but what it can do is redirect your traffic from organic searches from the .com in my case to the .eu which is https://geektees.eu/ for anyone who's in Europe region. It will also redirect collection pages that you may be ranking for so long as you keep the same url permalinks in your 2nd store.
  
  Having the 2nd store now might create SEO issues, so I'm keeping an eye out for that. If I see any drops on my .com rankings then I'll pull the plug on the .eu version straight away. Be wary of Google's duplicate content penalties if you believe they exist, my advice is run your copy through chat GPT to at least change any copy that appears in your 2nd version. Also remember to change your meta titles for each page as well.
  
  Having the 2nd site in the 2nd currency is maybe not as good a solution as having the .com with Shopify payments installed - but it does actually have some advantages such as:
• The .eu store can be totally tailored in terms of its content to the European market.
• You can gain their trust by using a .eu TLD instead of appearing like an American .com in Europe.
  
  Obviously, currency convertors can be achieved easily up to and including checkout on Wordpress with Woo installed, but in my experience, nothing comes close to how awesome Shopify is. Hope this helps someone anyway.
  
  

[SergeWebsites]

@Maz 

Are you suggesting as a solution to enable the conversion of prices and currencies for different markets on other payment providers like Stripe does? 

---

Yes, please! This is a feature requested by so many people. Not having Shopify Payments wouldn't be such a huge problem - especially since you boast having a hundred other payment providers - if you just enable multi currency for any of the payment providers that support it. This would be huge, and quickly increase adoption of Shopify internationally, where multicurrency is a must, but Shopify Payments isn't offered. You'd literally double the amount of paying custromers overnight if you enabled this feature, seems like a no-brainer.

[Maz]

@SergeWebsites 

Thanks for your response, and I'm sorry for the delay in getting back to you!

I wanted you to know that I also thank you for this valuable feedback. We truly appreciate your input. I have gone ahead and added this feedback along with the others for our development team to consider. We continuously evaluate and consider feedback from our merchants to improve our platform and expand the capabilities of our payment options.

Thank you once again for your feedback!

[karavancl]

Hello people,

I'm here just to add up on the request to have multiple currencies in countries that can't use Shopify Payments (brand from Greece here, i use EUR and need USD).
Please take this into consideration as it's a simple feature that could solve many UX issues.
Thank you!

[nohixoh]

https://community.shopify.com/c/payments-shipping-and/are-shopify-payments-available-in-greece/m-p/2...

A similar question is in a different thread, the solution is here, it also supports multicurrency checkout.

[Bekiges]

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/techtolia_activity-7269910858955177984-rU6M

Solution available now! You can find details in this article.