Member Avatar for HelenLF

I am developing an ecommerce website for a UK client whose market is also based in the US.
Can anyone advise me of the best way to display dollars versions of the prices (as well as pounds) and keep this info reasonable up to date?

Thanks in advance

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by MktgRob

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For a UK shop selling into the US there are two practical patterns and a few implementation details that determine cost, accuracy and customer experience. raised the need; was right that this is mainly a backend design decision, and pointed to existing cart solutions—either route can work, but pick the pattern that matches the business needs first.

Option A — convert on the fly from a single master price:

  • Keep one canonical price and currency in the database.
  • Pull a trusted exchange rate feed, cache it, and compute display prices at request time.
  • Pros: simple to maintain product data; single source of truth. Cons: checkout totals may differ slightly from displayed values unless you lock the conversion at checkout.

Option B — maintain per-currency prices:

  • Store a separate price per currency (or per market) and update them manually or with scheduled scripts.
  • Pros: full control of margins and localized pricing strategies. Cons: more data and maintenance.

Practical recommendations

Operational cautions

  • Verify how your payment gateway handles currency (charge in customer currency or convert at gateway).
  • Display VAT/tax rules correctly per market.
  • Decide a refresh cadence for rates (daily is common; hourly if volatility or margins require it).
    Quick checklist: pick storage model, choose rate API and cache strategy, implement locale formatting, show rate timestamp, and align checkout/gateway currency handling.

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Member Avatar for MktgRob

to be honest, I think your question is more of a back-end technology question for a web designer. You may want to, if you have not already, post this question in the Database or Web-Design subforums.

Member Avatar for AirForceOne

I recommend zen-cart for this purpose. It support all main currencies and customers could choose which currency while they are shopping on your site. :)

Member Avatar for MktgRob

I recommend zen-cart for this purpose. It support all main currencies and customers could choose which currency while they are shopping on your site. :)

I did not know that zen-cart offered these capabilities so thanks for the added info.

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