Selling In A Different Currency

Selling in your own currency is straightforward and needs no explanation, everything will work smoothly out of the box. Selling in a different currency however can be slightly more complex when it comes to the potential for refunds.

When sellers create a listing, they price the listing in US Dollars, and the price is then converted to other currencies automatically for them. We do it this way instead of allowing sellers to price their listings in different currencies as having to store the currency and price equivalent for each listing is much more complex and prone to error.

Buyers pay in their chosen currency (usd, cad, gbp, aud). This drastically increases the amount of potential buyers for items as well as buyer conversion rate. However, sellers may choose to only ship to their own country to completely avoid currency conversion (as your only buyers will be domestic and paying in your currency), although this is not recommended as it lowers sales potential, is worse for the buyer experience, and conversion fees can be offset/avoided via methods mentioned below.

When a buyer makes a purchase, if the payment is not in the seller’s paypal accounts main currency, paypal will auto convert it to the seller’s currency for a 4.5% fee (charged to the seller, not the buyer). We highly suggest sellers who sell internationally disable auto conversion within their paypal account settings > payment preferences > block payments (enable “Accept all payments without converting the currency”), and then you can manually convert the payment 10 days after item delivery (once the return/refund period is over), to avoid conversion fees and currency fluctuation in case of a refund. As if a buyer pays $100 USD, and it converts to $125 CAD for the seller, a week later $125 CAD may only be worth $95 USD, so upon the refund, the seller will still owe an extra $5 USD (not to mention the currency conversion fees to transfer the CAD back to USD). Not converting the payment until after the refund period is over (10 days after delivery) will void this issue for sellers.

International sellers often increase shipping costs to other countries to offset the currency conversion fee, although they can also ask (or offer the buyer a discount) for purchasing the item in the sellers own currency instead (buyers can change their currency in their Scuphed Account > Account Details area.) Although buyers should then be wary of the currency conversion and fluctuation on a potential refund like mentioned above, as they could end up receiving less money than they paid for, so sellers should mention this to them to avoid possible disputes over those additional fees/costs.

We believe this is a superior alternative to every user having to pay in one currency as some marketplaces mandate, as now buyers from all countries have the option to pay in their own currency, and sellers from all countries have the option to be paid out only in their own currency if they wish. This gives total freedom to all users, and increases total sales made via an improved buyer conversion rate. As well, remember to contact us about international purchases/sales you make to earn additional entries (learn more here).