Foreign currency only cosmetically supported?

[Darryl Lee]

Argh.

So my client is a US-based exporter of wines to the Philippines. We
need to show the prices in Philippine Pesos. SiteShop handles the
*display* of foreign currency fine.

However, when it comes time to pay the piper (so to speak), it doesn't
follow through.

Authorize.net (and presumably other credit card authorizers) seems to
have a field for foreign currency type: x_currency_code. Presumably
when you run your transaction, you submit the correct code (in this case
PHP) along with the amount, and Authorize.net takes care of figuring out
what the current exchange rate is and converting it into US dollars.

ShopSite wouldn't have to do *ONE THING* except pass the ISO currency
code which they already have in their countries.dat file.

But alas, in my tests, a transaction for 1000 PHP ended up getting
authorized against my credit card for $1000 USD. That's no good.

Anybody know of a workaround, or if not, a shopping cart provider that
*does* support foreign currency in more than just a cosmetic manner?

Thanks...

[Frustrated...]

--Darryl Lee

[loren_d_c]

"Presumably when you run your transaction, you submit the correct code
(in this case PHP) along with the amount, and Authorize.net takes care
of figuring out what the current exchange rate is and converting it into
US dollars."

That's presuming quite a bit. According to Authorize.net technical
support (contact info at
http://www.authorizenet.com/company/contacts.php), the only currency
they currently support is USD. If any other value was sent in the
'x_currency_code' field, they would not approve the transaction.

I believe that most of the US gateway companies that ShopSite is
integrated with have the same restrictions, they accept transactions in
USD for US merchant accounts only. I would suggest that you set the
Primany currency of your ShopSite to USD and the Alternate currency to
Philippine Pesos (set up in ShopSite's Preferences -> Locale menu). The
shopping cart will operate in USD, however if you are using
ShopSite-generated pages the cost in Philippine Pesos (according to the
Exchange Rate that you define) will display next to the amount in USD.

-Loren




Darryl Lee wrote:

Argh.

So my client is a US-based exporter of wines to the Philippines. We
need to show the prices in Philippine Pesos. SiteShop handles the
*display* of foreign currency fine.

However, when it comes time to pay the piper (so to speak), it doesn't
follow through.

Authorize.net (and presumably other credit card authorizers) seems to
have a field for foreign currency type: x_currency_code. Presumably
when you run your transaction, you submit the correct code (in this case
PHP) along with the amount, and Authorize.net takes care of figuring out
what the current exchange rate is and converting it into US dollars.

ShopSite wouldn't have to do *ONE THING* except pass the ISO currency
code which they already have in their countries.dat file.

But alas, in my tests, a transaction for 1000 PHP ended up getting
authorized against my credit card for $1000 USD. That's no good.

Anybody know of a workaround, or if not, a shopping cart provider that
*does* support foreign currency in more than just a cosmetic manner?

Thanks...

[Frustrated...]

--Darryl Lee

[Darryl Lee]

Loren wrote:

"Presumably when you run your transaction, you submit the correct code
(in this case PHP) along with the amount, and Authorize.net takes care
of figuring out what the current exchange rate is and converting it into
US dollars."

That's presuming quite a bit. According to Authorize.net technical
support (contact info at
http://www.authorizenet.com/company/contacts.php), the only currency
they currently support is USD. If any other value was sent in the
'x_currency_code' field, they would not approve the transaction.

I believe that most of the US gateway companies that ShopSite is
integrated with have the same restrictions, they accept transactions in
USD for US merchant accounts only. I would suggest that you set the
Primany currency of your ShopSite to USD and the Alternate currency to
Philippine Pesos (set up in ShopSite's Preferences -> Locale menu). The
shopping cart will operate in USD, however if you are using
ShopSite-generated pages the cost in Philippine Pesos (according to the
Exchange Rate that you define) will display next to the amount in USD.

But since the Exchange Rates change on a daily basis, that wouldn't be
quite fair.

Anyways, you're right. Authorize.net told me the same thing -- I wonder
why they bother having an x_currency_code in the first place then. Ugh.

Thanks.

--Darryl

[tricianeill]

Hi -
Did you ever get this issue resolved? We would like to use UK Pounds for our primary currency display, but when it resolves through the payment processor, since we are in the US - we need it converted at the current exchange rate to US Dollars. Has anyone heard of an international CC processor that works with Shopsite that can do this automatically?
Thanks in advance for any help!
Tricia