# Buying libraries not in your currency



## Rv5 (Apr 29, 2019)

Hey all, bit of market research here though Im guessing the answer is generally, yes, people prefer to buy in their own currency and may be put off otherwise.

Can I just check in on your experiences with this? Are you more likey to purchase a library available in your own currency / less likely to buy because it isn't?

Currently looking to impliment Geo location on www.waverunneraudio.com so it will give you your home currency, would people pefer this?

Best

Ross


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## Denkii (Apr 29, 2019)

To me personally it depends on the currency.
Your website states UK prices right? To me that's a bummer because it'll always be more in my own currency which leaves a bad taste.
When I'm buying something in CAD for example, I always feel like a champ because it sounds way less in € due to the good conversion rate.

What's most important to me though is that prices are communicated including tax, if possible. It's a super downer when you forget about it and save the money for a purchase (as we know sometimes those are huge amounts) only to then find out you forgot about 20% or so.

But referring to what currency should be used: I feel like you can win more than you'd lose if you display the correct currency for users but that's mostly because you're dealing with pounds. UK users will be used to it and everyone else will feel less intimidated because the conversion rate to GBP is pretty high for most people.


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## chillbot (Apr 29, 2019)

Denkii said basically what I was going to say. From the US I am MORE likely to buy samples in pounds or euros because 20€ or 20£ sounds better then $25 US (whatever it is).

Other than that I have never considered currency as a factor in making a purchase. In this day and age I assume that my credit card or paypal or the internet will deal with any conversions for me.


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## Denkii (Apr 29, 2019)

chillbot said:


> Denkii said basically what I was going to say. From the US I am MORE likely to buy samples in pounds or euros because 20€ or 20£ sounds better then $25 US (whatever it is).
> 
> Other than that I have never considered currency as a factor in making a purchase. In this day and age I assume that my credit card or paypal or the internet will deal with any conversions for me.


That's not what I said though. 

I was referring to a scenario where I'd use PayPal. When you do, you'll get the price converted and shown in your own currency. Then it would always be more in € than what was stated in £ and I personally dislike that feeling.


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## Rv5 (Apr 29, 2019)

Thanks for the feeback guys. I've noticed some companies going with something like £79, €89, $99 and this makes some sense due to conversion rates and then conversion fees. When I was offering multi currencies. as a small developer. I was loosing out a lot on the exchange and then some on the conversion fee, these figures help reflect a similar conversion rate and makes things a little more sustainable. But then some companies I've seen do something like £199 .
/ €199 / $199 where obviously the dollar is the cheaper (or am I missing tax stuff). Still at the point I'm doing all this kind of thing myself sans accountant etc so all feedback real useful!


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## hawpri (Apr 29, 2019)

It doesn't make a difference to me but I prefer seeing the amount in USD next to the store's default currency.


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## Denkii (Apr 29, 2019)

Stating the same price for every currency would make me aggressive because I can mostly lose in that scenario.

Stating three versions of a price would probably also make me want to live in the US.
Edit: I just realized this doesn't make sense if I don't explain it. What I mean is: if I get shown $99 vs. 89€, more often than not it would be effectively less money in Dollars than in Euros if you look up the conversion rates. In this case, I'd prefer to pay in Dollars even though I am from Europe.

Yes, I have tried to use VPNs to foreign relays to get better prices before.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Apr 29, 2019)

It's not rocket science...just quickly Google the currency conversion and....voila! The Canadian dollar is always a shocker, so I'm used to automatically knowing what most covers rates will be.


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## Desire Inspires (May 1, 2019)

Why would the currency matter? Either you can afford the purchase or not.


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## TimCox (May 1, 2019)

I just google the difference, it's all relative anyway!


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## Jeremy Spencer (May 1, 2019)

ka00 said:


> I’ve never purchased anything in my local currency (CAD) without having the price marked up considerably (either by the developer or their e-commerce vendor) as a consequence. Every single time the conversion rate they lock you into is terrible. FastSpring is pretty bad in this regard for example.
> 
> I’ve backed out of purchases when I wasn’t allowed to pay in USD from my Canadian PayPal account. Most recently with Audio-Modeling. I found a US distributor with a better price who didn't force me into paying in CAD.



I think PayPal also increases the exchange rate a bit, we Canucks get screwed regardless.


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## Saxer (May 1, 2019)

Doesn't matter. Before I click "ok" I can see my currency.


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## YaniDee (May 1, 2019)

Wolfie2112 said:


> we Canucks get screwed regardless.


 I've said this in another post but I'll say it again, Canada is a very large country with an abundance of natural resources, a sound financial system, and is innovative in scientific and other development..and we're (generally) nice, yet our dollar is worth squat..A recent 8Dio purchase of 18$ became 25$!
Going from Cubase 8.5 pro to 10 pro. is listed at $200 US, and becomes $300 CAD. A forum discussion about this issue is here:

https://www.steinberg.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=284&t=147510

And then there's Native Instruments which has a similar markup, and adds tax!
One time I bought a product from a small developer (can't recall which one), and the final price was way above a "normal" conversion. I sent him an email pointing it out, and he replied that the company handling his purchases had a software glitch, thanked me for letting him know, and he then gave me a better price. That's pretty rare..


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## Desire Inspires (May 1, 2019)

Why not just use a U.S. billing address? If you are downloading the software, it should be fairly easy to do this.


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## YaniDee (May 1, 2019)

Desire Inspires said:


> Why not just use a U.S. billing address?


Thnx..I'll look into that..But Paypal, etc has my address, and they can tell the country by the IP address..
I just came across this, it's more more for packages but could be an option. 

https://www.shipito.com/


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## PaulieDC (May 1, 2019)

chillbot said:


> Other than that I have never considered currency as a factor in making a purchase. In this day and age I assume that my credit card or paypal or the internet will deal with any conversions for me.



Well exactly. I think I'm missing the point of the thread somewhere. Berlin String is 840 Euros. That's $941 USD (today). I don't think I'm paying MORE, I'm just paying the USD representation of 840 euros. Look at the folks in Japan... Berlin Strings costs them 104,822... yen.

BTW, kudos to Spitfire, when I hunt around and covet 9/10's of their stuff, they somehow list everything in USD in my US browser... I guess they detect the location? So I'm not looking at British Pounds which would be a lower number. In fact, when they put Chamber Strings pro at half price in March and I leaped on it, it said $499, went into the cart and onto my PayPal Credit account at $499. So the real answer is, hey library companies, get web developers that can code for location!


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## Denkii (May 1, 2019)

PaulieDC said:


> In fact, when they put Chamber Strings pro at half price in March and I leaped on it, it said $499, went into the cart and onto my PayPal Credit account at $499. So the real answer is, hey library companies, get web developers that can code for location!



Which was listed for 500€ in Europe...that's actually around $560. Which brings me back to my original post: happy to screw back via VPN if someone tries to screw me.
To clarify: I do understand that it was still 50% off the MSRP. All I'm saying is that I don't see why Europeans should spend 10% more on a product that literally has the same distribution cost regardless of the destination.


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## chocobitz825 (May 1, 2019)

YaniDee said:


> Thnx..I'll look into that..But Paypal, etc has my address, and they can tell the country by the IP address..
> I just came across this, it's more more for packages but could be an option.
> 
> https://www.shipito.com/


I’m not sure in the case of PayPal but billing addresses are used to confirm the validity of the payment method. If the zip code information doesn’t match your credit card’s registers zip it can be declined. With PayPal, in cases where the billing address is also provided by PayPal you likely have no options since I believe PayPal requires your information match your billing info as well.


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## YaniDee (May 1, 2019)

In any case , it makes me think twice about buying more stuff, as I have so many libraries and plugins..


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## Jeremy Spencer (May 2, 2019)

Desire Inspires said:


> Why not just use a U.S. billing address? If you are downloading the software, it should be fairly easy to do this.



Because when I claim the virtual instruments on my income tax, that would be fraud; the CRA would clearly see the address on the receipt. Plus, I don't have a US bank account or credit card.


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## LinusW (May 2, 2019)

Currency is out of the picture. 
I'm more likely to purchase from european stores because the receipts will state VAT included in the price.


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## Dominik Raab (May 4, 2019)

LinusW said:


> Currency is out of the picture.
> I'm more likely to purchase from european stores because the receipts will state VAT included in the price.



Came here to say this. This whole "ONLY 299.99 SPECIAL OFFER BUY NOW PLEASE THANK YOU (by the way there's vat sorry lol)" business puts me right off.


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