Asking honestly, is this something that's even remotely on the radar over at SmugMug HQ at present, or am I [and the rest of us International plebs] simply leading a masterclass in futility by even requesting it?
Of course I'm not asking for any sort of commitment/timeframe. I understand enough about business to realise that you don't make those sort of commitments on a public forum.
However, some sort of guidance on exactly where we stand with this issue really would be appreciated.
We'd love to do it. We have limits with our cart, card provider, and system. If it happens, it's not anytime soon, I'm sorry to say.
But it's still important to us. I wish I had a better answer for you.
Whilst I'm obviously not in any sort of a position to argue with you about your system capabilities, I must admit that I really do find it hard to accept that you can't come up with something which at the very least works slightly better than your current system.
There are already a million and one public API's one can plug into for working out currency conversions.
So ... What's so hard about giving customers a list of alternative currencies to choose from, and then on the checkout page just displaying a converted amount alongside the USD total?
You still charge the order in USD, so you don't have to completly re-invent your entire billing/checkout system, but at the same time you're still making it a WHOLE LOT friendlier for people buying internationally [by at least showing them what that USD amount actually means in "their money"].
Of course, this is still a long way from the ideal solution [which would be to actually charge the whole order in [say] Australian Dollars], but as a "quick fix" I can still see a LOT of value in getting this up and running.
Andy ... this ISN'T that hard to impliment!!!
I'm not asking you guys to try and re-invent the wheel here ... just make a few simple changes to make the checkout process slightly more friendly to international customers.
I'm positively overflowing with good ideas about getting this up and running, but unfortunately they really don't count for much if I can't at least understand what's actually stopping you from getting any of them implemented in the first place.
I'm not asking you to get into specifics about the companies internal workings, just a broad sense of what you're actually talking about when you say it's not easy an easy thing to do.
Is it purely a coding issue? Too Hard? Too much time? Too costly? Just not worth the bother of doing?
Are you worried that people will be confused by the diffrent US/Foreign amounts?
Is there some sort of a wider problem with showing totals in non-us dollars?
What's the story?
To be perfectly honest, it is something we have only given a cursory thought to. Nothing is ever simple, especially not something that involves changing pricing and financial transactions for an already complicate procedure. So in addition to the hurdles we do know about, there are always tons of hurdles we don't figure out until we are neck deep.
There are some basic problems relating to the fact that we don't charge cards at the time of transaction. We charge them (days/weeks) later at the time of shipping the product. Showing them even an "estimated" cost in their own currency won't be accurate when they actually do get billed. Trying to educate a customer on that isn't exactly easy either.
That being said, it isn't so much the problems as much as it is a combination of problems and priorities. We overcome bigger problems every day when building new features, but we are a very small team. We have extremely limited manpower, and we have to prioritize what we will work on. To be completely bluntly honest, currency conversion is fairly low on our list at the moment.
We have an extremely long list of things we want to add to the site (see the several years of feature request threads), and as a small company we don't have the manpower to work on everything at once.
We are building a new shopping cart that will do more for improving the shopping experience for instance. (Which also makes it worth less to try and build it now, as it would just have to be rebuilt with the new cart)
Somewhere down the road, we would REALLY like to add coupons and package deals, which is also probably a higher priority for pros. You can see where I am going with this.
We do mean it when we say we want it, but we also mean it when we say it probably won't come very soon. :cry
Sorry, I know it isn't the answer you want to hear. But I figured you would want to hear the honest answer.
Hi David,
That being said, it isn't so much the problems as much as it is a combination of problems and priorities. We overcome bigger problems every day when building new features, but we are a very small team. We have extremely limited manpower, and we have to prioritize what we will work on. To be completely bluntly honest, currency conversion is fairly low on our list at the moment.
The way I see it, the current system is costing you the loss of many sales. Smugmug make a percentage from every sale, and for every sale lost because of the current system, that is good money lost to you as well as us.
I would really be interested to see the percentage difference in sales from US Pro accounts to non US Pro accounts. If anything written in this thread is something to go by, I would guess that non-US Pro users sell less which could be attributed to the currency situation.
If this is the case, then surely it would benifit SM to look more seriously into this. An improvement that increases revenue is a priority change in my books.
Somewhere down the road, we would REALLY like to add coupons and package deals, which is also probably a higher priority for pros. You can see where I am going with this.
Maybe, but many international users may say it's only a higher priority to US-Pros. It won't help us if we are not getting sales anyway. The way Smugmug feels to me, is that it is a Global Photo Viewing Community, but a US Shop. Maybe the promotions for the Pro-Account should mention this?
Hi David (and Andy), First, I really want to thank you both for taking this issue seriously, and communicating back with us.
I would like to respond to a couple of points though first.
The way I see it, the current system is costing you the loss of many sales. Smugmug make a percentage from every sale, and for every sale lost because of the current system, that is good money lost to you as well as us.
I would really be interested to see the percentage difference in sales from US Pro accounts to non US Pro accounts. If anything written in this thread is something to go by, I would guess that non-US Pro users sell less which could be attributed to the currency situation.
If this is the case, then surely it would benifit SM to look more seriously into this. An improvement that increases revenue is a priority change in my books.
Maybe, but many international users may say it's only a higher priority to US-Pros. It won't help us if we are not getting sales anyway. The way Smugmug feels to me, is that it is a Global Photo Viewing Community, but a US Shop. Maybe the promotions for the Pro-Account should mention this?
Yes, I totally agree. Being a UK user I would love to see multiple currency support. This site is great, apart from the fact that I cannot sell from it as my customers want to see GBP prices. I do agree that coupons and packages would be good to have, but at the same time I cannot sell these anyway as the site is exclusively in USD at the moment.
I have been trying to set up paypal as an alternative, with not much success so far. May be this is another alternative SmugMug could introduce instead for us international folk.... a paypal shopping cart to use... just to give us something to tide us over until the multiple currency becomes more of a priority for them.
There are some basic problems relating to the fact that we don't charge cards at the time of transaction. We charge them (days/weeks) later at the time of shipping the product. Showing them even an "estimated" cost in their own currency won't be accurate when they actually do get billed.
Okay ... so I've accepted that as an obstacle that needs to be overcome, but has this actually changed recently? [Perhaps along with the introduction of the new cart interface?]
I've noticed with the last couple of orders that I've put through, that my credit card has been charged as soon as the order is completed.
Has that marked a change in the way transactions are being processed?
Does that move us any closer to making ANY changes what-so-ever to make the ordering process more friendly to the 95% of the World's population that don't call America home?
The latest in a series of emails about why we charge in US$.
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for your quick reply. It ensured that 3 of your photos made our annual report and made a $75 dint in my credit card account (ouch!)! How come you guys use an offshore host ? I hate $USD.
Kind Regards,
David Morgan"
I can't see what is hard about having a little more Javascript to grab the current currency conversion and convert the US$ to what ever currency I specify. Or even making a setting somewhere, where I have to update it.
Even if it is an additional number after the total. ie US$ 30 (AUS$ 35)
I do realise that you are working flat out on new things and I do like the new cart ordering system, but sometimes you have to stop inventing and tweak what you have to make it smoother.
The latest in a series of emails about why we charge in US$.
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for your quick reply. It ensured that 3 of your photos made our annual report and made a $75 dint in my credit card account (ouch!)! How come you guys use an offshore host ? I hate $USD.
Kind Regards,
David Morgan"
I can't see what is hard about having a little more Javascript to grab the current currency conversion and convert the US$ to what ever currency I specify. Or even making a setting somewhere, where I have to update it.
Even if it is an additional number after the total. ie US$ 30 (AUS$ 35)
I do realise that you are working flat out on new things and I do like the new cart ordering system, but sometimes you have to stop inventing and tweak what you have to make it smoother.
cheers
Andrew
There's a lot to it, not just programming. But thanks for letting us know how important this is to you!
First post here. I have been trying the pro account during the past days and customized my site (lichtlab.smugmug.com) to look like www.lichtlab.be, my current site. I am very happy with the customization options and the presentation of the galleries, but I am seriously doubting if I will continue with Smugmug because of this issue.
I am based in Belgium (Euro territory) and people are not too positive when they see dollars and inches versus euros and cm. I solved it this (Where it says "Maten en prijzen") way, but that is really just a hack... REALLY REALLY no chance of implementing an auto conversion IN the shopping cart? (you could always post a disclaimer that says subject to fluctuations in exchange rate, or you could go the extra mile and swallow the fluctuations yourself, or even charge it to me if that is the problem). I really find it hard to believe that this is such a difficult problem. Nothing a few database tables and javascript couldn't solve...
If you guys want a chance of breaking into the euro market and become the default leader make this change now before another company steps up and implements this relatively simple feature. I realise it is not THAT simple, but you are most likely compromising a huge market opportunity!
no need to get an image from tripod.com, we have our own smilie right here on dgrin for that.
type colon-bash :bash
Thanks, but that's not nearly a big enough wall Andy!
EDIT: Of course me being the eternal optimist that I am, at least we can look on the bright side of all this.
With the US Dollar declining at the rate it is, it's not going to be too much longer until it's worth less than the Australian Dollar, and then we won't even have to worry about the conversion any more. Hooray!
Well, I do feel rather annoyinf already complaining even before I have an official account but it is such a nice feature and for the entire non-us world probably a whole lot more important than other features such as package pricing. You guys are not only missing purchases from registered non-us pros, but also a lot of missed non-us pro registrations, which you can not even measure. I would kindly ask to reevaluate the importance of this request. If you do this, you are FIRST for the ENTIRE rest of the world. It seems so obvious that I can't imagine you didn't consider this, but OTOH it also seems so strange that despite of the huge opportunity you put this low on your list. Profit IS important for you guys too no?
David, thanks for the brick wall. I've installed next to my desk and it's proving very handy for problems such as this. I've also seen the boss sneaking in to use it as well !
Seriously, lets look at some figures. Population of the US is 0.45 % of the worlds population. Population of Developed Nations, which are the ones outside the US to most likely use Smugmug is 20%. Even if we discount half that figure, the US is only 5% of that. So by only using US$ you are effectively alienating 95% of your customers. Doesn't seem to be a smart business move.
Looking at traffic, Alexa.com has just over half your traffic coming from the US (56.7%), so again you are alienating 43.3.% of your visitors as soon as they get to the shopping cart and can't pay in their currency.
Again, I love what you are doing with the site, all the new tools and so forth, but this is my only bugbear.
David, thanks for the brick wall. I've installed next to my desk and it's proving very handy for problems such as this. I've also seen the boss sneaking in to use it as well !
Seriously, lets look at some figures. Population of the US is 0.45 % of the worlds population. Population of Developed Nations, which are the ones outside the US to most likely use Smugmug is 20%. Even if we discount half that figure, the US is only 5% of that. So by only using US$ you are effectively alienating 95% of your customers. Doesn't seem to be a smart business move.
Looking at traffic, Alexa.com has just over half your traffic coming from the US (56.7%), so again you are alienating 43.3.% of your visitors as soon as they get to the shopping cart and can't pay in their currency.
Again, I love what you are doing with the site, all the new tools and so forth, but this is my only bugbear.
Andrew
Yes I want to emphasize this too. I love everything else about the site. Never thought it would be customizable like this and you can get it to look great, but I am afraid for my sales the dollars and inches only will do no good... Thanks for the Alexa stats BTW, this makes our request a bit more substantiated.
my few cents on this issue, (euro cents)
SMUGMUG!
First I must say I love smugmug and what it has achieved to date..
BUT!!!
It has come to the stage where customers are now telling me that they do not want to do business with me in US dollors.. Im based in Ireland, and it looks like I have to start moving my site away from smugmug as if I want my website to succeed..
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE consider handling euro and others! At least give us an inclination that you are even considering our requests and maybe even a distant development timeline????
Hi, welcome. Ouch, I'm really sorry that we don't have this for you. It's something we'd love to have, but unfortunately, we don't yet. I'm sorry that it's causing you to be so annoyed. If you'd like, we'll give you a full refund, no worries, just say the word. Email to our help desk http://www.smugmug.com/help/emailreal and put ATTN: Andy in the subject, I'll take care of it for you.
This is a great way for SmugMug to capitalize on the weak US dollar. I have no plans of selling photos internationally but it makes good sense to get this working for those users. You should at least employ a system for handling transactions in Euros. People in Europe will pay more for the exact same stock image in the US. If you have to choose between buying a US picture for $100 or a European picture for 100 Euros, it is a no brainer. Everyone would go with the US first. Same thing with SmugMug’s services.
I am a current smugmug user and absolutely love the photo display and customisation capabilities of smugmug. I am however a power user who is thiking of upgrading to a pro account primarily due to the key feature of being able to set custom pricing.
Being based outside of the US (Australia in my case), as many people have already mentioned, anybody who is looking at my photos and is considering buying prints want to see prices in local curreny not US$.
This is the only thing stopping me from upgrading to a pro account immediately and now I will need to put some serious consideration into whether I use the smugmug printing capabilities for customers or set local pricing and submit on their behalf.
Is there any update on this feature? If not I'd like to add
my voice to the future request. When reading this thread
I realized that the american localization is the only thing
that keeps me from signing up for a SmugMug Pro account.
“To consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravitation before going for a walk.”
― Edward Weston
I'm having to provide an online ordering system for a new client - I'm dismayed Smugmug STILL hasn't got an option/customisation that will allow people to order in UK pounds, as I believe that my customers simply will not order when they see US dollar pricing. :bash
Hopefully I'll still be able to integrate something clever (Paypal?) on the SM site. (any pointers? )
To echo Craig and Manfr3d, once this is fixed I'll happily upgrade to a Pro account. But not before.
Parts of my website are hosted outside of SM. I'm not a computer expert so forgive the basic descriptions. Their control panel is 'cpanel' and it automatically installs 'plugins' via a fantastico script (?). My host offers 3 e-commerce plugins and, AFAIK, they're free to me.
I think they all offer real-time, multi-currency transactions via credit card, paypal and a host of other stuff I didn't fully understand. An earlier poster said something like 40% of your visitors come from outside of the USA.
There seems to be a demand for a non-US$ payment scheme and there seems to be off-the-shelf solution(s), yet hosting video's(!!!) gets more priority... I don't understand it.
In addition to the customisation options, the main advantage (to me) of SM was the potential for 'drive-by'/'long tail' sales to international customers. But if, (&/or when), my work becomes more event/studio based, it might be easier for me to use Lightroom and upload/ftp low-res images to my own website and let clients phone/email me what they want.
I would urge SM to reconsider their priorities. You're not the cheapest option and I would encourage you to listen to your customers. Afterall, Don MacAskill has the same opinion Companies That Listen: Sun
I'm sure if you contacted one of the three companies listed above and said, 'we've 100k customers but we need a SM "skin" over your product'; they'd be very, very, very happy to do so. Probably wouldn't cost you too much either if you played the three of them against each other??
Sorry ... but only American currency will be accepted!
Today was the day I had to let go of another US$150 to renew my SmugMug account, and I have to admit that I felt a bit sad seeing it go ... knowing in all probablity that all I was buying myself was the oppertunity for another 12 months of banging my head against this same brick wall.
I've also read with a rather unsettling sense of irony Don MacAskill's gleeful blog posts about Sun acquiring MySQL, because Sun is a company that actually listens to it's customers!
He's right you know ... that really must be a good feeling to have! What a shame that we can't all share in that same sense of optimisim ...
With the American economy rapidly sliding towards a recession, I would have thought that diversifying beyond the US dollar would have been the absolutely BEST thing you could have done?
Still ... I suppose that it's not ALL bad news for us International Plebs™ ...
The more the US dollar slides, the cheaper we can get all our photos done!
Ouch- customer complaint about this for me too...
After my customer first had an issue with not being able to click the button for copying the shipping address from billing address (I reported this months ago and it was seemingly fixed, but the same thing happened yesterday), I now have a complaint about the USD$ to add!
"All done, but didnt not know I was paying for them in USA dollars!!!! Till the e mail came back to me to say all done. Arent you in Christchurch? I am in Christchurch every second week so dont even need to send them... Why are we paying in USA dollars not NZ dollars?Debbie"
I did have a comment in the gallery description "Please note all prices are in $USD" for 1 of the 2 galleries she ordered from, but apparently that's not good enough.
As for this customer, I've emailed her and volunteered either a refund or a free 4mp image of all the images she ordered - but the embarassment is worse. I screwed up on one gallery by not noting the $USD (It was a gallery from about a year ago) but even with the comment in the recent gallery description, it was missed.
I know SM won't give any indication if they're working on any new features, but on the offchance that a pang of guilt for not implementing SOMETHING helpful in relation to this occurs, here are a couple of hopefully simple suggestions. Either of them would help a little bit, first one's better.
1) Provide a currency selection in the cart, and list BESIDE the official $USD, something like "(approx $11.25NZD at 21/01/08)" and link that whole comment to XE.com. Also you'd need a comment on the page that local currencies are indicative only, and that all transactions are in USD...
2) PLEASE, at the very least, place "$USD" beside EVERY INSTANCE OF A DOLLAR VALUE ON YOUR SITE! I have to ask you, please get one of your coders to give you an opinion about how hard that would be. Please please please at least explain why what would be so hard. It WOULD prevent issues of the surprise billing like I got above.
Unless something gets done here, I'm going to include in large text "ALL PRICES IN $USD ONLY" in red text on my banner, and put that text in capitals, FIRST, on all my gallery descriptions"...
I honestly don't think you understand over there in the US, how embarassing and crazy it seems to explain that I can only sell photos using $USD.
Sorry I had to vent, but please at least consider hacking in the "$USD" display beside dollar values - the estimated local currency would be even better.
Cheers - Neil Gardner www.nzsnaps.com (BEWARE! All prices in $USD only!)
Comments
Asking honestly, is this something that's even remotely on the radar over at SmugMug HQ at present, or am I [and the rest of us International plebs] simply leading a masterclass in futility by even requesting it?
Of course I'm not asking for any sort of commitment/timeframe. I understand enough about business to realise that you don't make those sort of commitments on a public forum.
However, some sort of guidance on exactly where we stand with this issue really would be appreciated.
--David Tomic
www.davidtomic.com
But it's still important to us. I wish I had a better answer for you.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
There are already a million and one public API's one can plug into for working out currency conversions.
So ... What's so hard about giving customers a list of alternative currencies to choose from, and then on the checkout page just displaying a converted amount alongside the USD total?
You still charge the order in USD, so you don't have to completly re-invent your entire billing/checkout system, but at the same time you're still making it a WHOLE LOT friendlier for people buying internationally [by at least showing them what that USD amount actually means in "their money"].
EXAMPLE
Of course, this is still a long way from the ideal solution [which would be to actually charge the whole order in [say] Australian Dollars], but as a "quick fix" I can still see a LOT of value in getting this up and running.
Andy ... this ISN'T that hard to impliment!!!
I'm not asking you guys to try and re-invent the wheel here ... just make a few simple changes to make the checkout process slightly more friendly to international customers.
--David Tomic
www.davidtomic.com
Thanks for telling us how important this is to you. I've made sure that our Product Manager, Ben, has seen your postings.
Thanks!
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Is there any benefit at all in me discussing this with him directly, or not?
--David Tomic
www.davidtomic.com
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Let's discuss it then Andy!
I'm positively overflowing with good ideas about getting this up and running, but unfortunately they really don't count for much if I can't at least understand what's actually stopping you from getting any of them implemented in the first place.
I'm not asking you to get into specifics about the companies internal workings, just a broad sense of what you're actually talking about when you say it's not easy an easy thing to do.
Is it purely a coding issue? Too Hard? Too much time? Too costly? Just not worth the bother of doing?
Are you worried that people will be confused by the diffrent US/Foreign amounts?
Is there some sort of a wider problem with showing totals in non-us dollars?
What's the story?
To be perfectly honest, it is something we have only given a cursory thought to. Nothing is ever simple, especially not something that involves changing pricing and financial transactions for an already complicate procedure. So in addition to the hurdles we do know about, there are always tons of hurdles we don't figure out until we are neck deep.
There are some basic problems relating to the fact that we don't charge cards at the time of transaction. We charge them (days/weeks) later at the time of shipping the product. Showing them even an "estimated" cost in their own currency won't be accurate when they actually do get billed. Trying to educate a customer on that isn't exactly easy either.
That being said, it isn't so much the problems as much as it is a combination of problems and priorities. We overcome bigger problems every day when building new features, but we are a very small team. We have extremely limited manpower, and we have to prioritize what we will work on. To be completely bluntly honest, currency conversion is fairly low on our list at the moment.
We have an extremely long list of things we want to add to the site (see the several years of feature request threads), and as a small company we don't have the manpower to work on everything at once.
We are building a new shopping cart that will do more for improving the shopping experience for instance. (Which also makes it worth less to try and build it now, as it would just have to be rebuilt with the new cart)
Somewhere down the road, we would REALLY like to add coupons and package deals, which is also probably a higher priority for pros. You can see where I am going with this.
We do mean it when we say we want it, but we also mean it when we say it probably won't come very soon. :cry
Sorry, I know it isn't the answer you want to hear. But I figured you would want to hear the honest answer.
I would like to respond to a couple of points though first.
The way I see it, the current system is costing you the loss of many sales. Smugmug make a percentage from every sale, and for every sale lost because of the current system, that is good money lost to you as well as us.
I would really be interested to see the percentage difference in sales from US Pro accounts to non US Pro accounts. If anything written in this thread is something to go by, I would guess that non-US Pro users sell less which could be attributed to the currency situation.
If this is the case, then surely it would benifit SM to look more seriously into this. An improvement that increases revenue is a priority change in my books.
Maybe, but many international users may say it's only a higher priority to US-Pros. It won't help us if we are not getting sales anyway. The way Smugmug feels to me, is that it is a Global Photo Viewing Community, but a US Shop. Maybe the promotions for the Pro-Account should mention this?
Yes, I totally agree. Being a UK user I would love to see multiple currency support. This site is great, apart from the fact that I cannot sell from it as my customers want to see GBP prices. I do agree that coupons and packages would be good to have, but at the same time I cannot sell these anyway as the site is exclusively in USD at the moment.
I have been trying to set up paypal as an alternative, with not much success so far. May be this is another alternative SmugMug could introduce instead for us international folk.... a paypal shopping cart to use... just to give us something to tide us over until the multiple currency becomes more of a priority for them.
Michael
www.banksy.me.uk - main website
http://galleries.banksy.me.uk - smugmug site
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Okay ... so I've accepted that as an obstacle that needs to be overcome, but has this actually changed recently? [Perhaps along with the introduction of the new cart interface?]
I've noticed with the last couple of orders that I've put through, that my credit card has been charged as soon as the order is completed.
Has that marked a change in the way transactions are being processed?
Does that move us any closer to making ANY changes what-so-ever to make the ordering process more friendly to the 95% of the World's population that don't call America home?
--DavidTomic
www.davidtomic.com
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for your quick reply. It ensured that 3 of your photos made our annual report and made a $75 dint in my credit card account (ouch!)! How come you guys use an offshore host ? I hate $USD.
Kind Regards,
David Morgan"
I can't see what is hard about having a little more Javascript to grab the current currency conversion and convert the US$ to what ever currency I specify. Or even making a setting somewhere, where I have to update it.
Even if it is an additional number after the total. ie US$ 30 (AUS$ 35)
I do realise that you are working flat out on new things and I do like the new cart ordering system, but sometimes you have to stop inventing and tweak what you have to make it smoother.
cheers
Andrew
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
hi there,
First post here. I have been trying the pro account during the past days and customized my site (lichtlab.smugmug.com) to look like www.lichtlab.be, my current site. I am very happy with the customization options and the presentation of the galleries, but I am seriously doubting if I will continue with Smugmug because of this issue.
I am based in Belgium (Euro territory) and people are not too positive when they see dollars and inches versus euros and cm. I solved it this (Where it says "Maten en prijzen") way, but that is really just a hack... REALLY REALLY no chance of implementing an auto conversion IN the shopping cart? (you could always post a disclaimer that says subject to fluctuations in exchange rate, or you could go the extra mile and swallow the fluctuations yourself, or even charge it to me if that is the problem). I really find it hard to believe that this is such a difficult problem. Nothing a few database tables and javascript couldn't solve...
If you guys want a chance of breaking into the euro market and become the default leader make this change now before another company steps up and implements this relatively simple feature. I realise it is not THAT simple, but you are most likely compromising a huge market opportunity!
Welcome aboard lichtlab. Here's a brick wall which you can now officially start banging your head against.
--David Tomic
www.davidtomic.com
type colon-bash :bash
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Thanks, but that's not nearly a big enough wall Andy!
EDIT: Of course me being the eternal optimist that I am, at least we can look on the bright side of all this.
With the US Dollar declining at the rate it is, it's not going to be too much longer until it's worth less than the Australian Dollar, and then we won't even have to worry about the conversion any more. Hooray!
Viva la Revolución!
--David Tomic
www.davidtomic.com
Seriously, lets look at some figures. Population of the US is 0.45 % of the worlds population. Population of Developed Nations, which are the ones outside the US to most likely use Smugmug is 20%. Even if we discount half that figure, the US is only 5% of that. So by only using US$ you are effectively alienating 95% of your customers. Doesn't seem to be a smart business move.
Looking at traffic, Alexa.com has just over half your traffic coming from the US (56.7%), so again you are alienating 43.3.% of your visitors as soon as they get to the shopping cart and can't pay in their currency.
Again, I love what you are doing with the site, all the new tools and so forth, but this is my only bugbear.
Andrew
Yes I want to emphasize this too. I love everything else about the site. Never thought it would be customizable like this and you can get it to look great, but I am afraid for my sales the dollars and inches only will do no good... Thanks for the Alexa stats BTW, this makes our request a bit more substantiated.
SMUGMUG!
First I must say I love smugmug and what it has achieved to date..
BUT!!!
It has come to the stage where customers are now telling me that they do not want to do business with me in US dollors.. Im based in Ireland, and it looks like I have to start moving my site away from smugmug as if I want my website to succeed..
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE consider handling euro and others! At least give us an inclination that you are even considering our requests and maybe even a distant development timeline????
:help
Cheers
CyberUnch
http://www.freeweddingphotographers.com
This is a great way for SmugMug to capitalize on the weak US dollar. I have no plans of selling photos internationally but it makes good sense to get this working for those users. You should at least employ a system for handling transactions in Euros. People in Europe will pay more for the exact same stock image in the US. If you have to choose between buying a US picture for $100 or a European picture for 100 Euros, it is a no brainer. Everyone would go with the US first. Same thing with SmugMug’s services.
Being based outside of the US (Australia in my case), as many people have already mentioned, anybody who is looking at my photos and is considering buying prints want to see prices in local curreny not US$.
This is the only thing stopping me from upgrading to a pro account immediately and now I will need to put some serious consideration into whether I use the smugmug printing capabilities for customers or set local pricing and submit on their behalf.
Craig.
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/craigridleyoutdoorphotography
Want to save $5 on a smugmug account? Use this coupon code: WzG2eZLQPGrqI
my voice to the future request. When reading this thread
I realized that the american localization is the only thing
that keeps me from signing up for a SmugMug Pro account.
― Edward Weston
Hopefully I'll still be able to integrate something clever (Paypal?) on the SM site. (any pointers?
To echo Craig and Manfr3d, once this is fixed I'll happily upgrade to a Pro account. But not before.
They are:
cubecart
oscommerce
zen-cart
I think they all offer real-time, multi-currency transactions via credit card, paypal and a host of other stuff I didn't fully understand. An earlier poster said something like 40% of your visitors come from outside of the USA.
There seems to be a demand for a non-US$ payment scheme and there seems to be off-the-shelf solution(s), yet hosting video's(!!!) gets more priority... I don't understand it.
In addition to the customisation options, the main advantage (to me) of SM was the potential for 'drive-by'/'long tail' sales to international customers. But if, (&/or when), my work becomes more event/studio based, it might be easier for me to use Lightroom and upload/ftp low-res images to my own website and let clients phone/email me what they want.
I would urge SM to reconsider their priorities. You're not the cheapest option and I would encourage you to listen to your customers. Afterall, Don MacAskill has the same opinion
My 2€cent
http://www.presencephotography.com
http://presence.smugmug.com
http://www.presencephotography.com
http://presence.smugmug.com
Sorry ... but only American currency will be accepted!
Today was the day I had to let go of another US$150 to renew my SmugMug account, and I have to admit that I felt a bit sad seeing it go ... knowing in all probablity that all I was buying myself was the oppertunity for another 12 months of banging my head against this same brick wall.
I've also read with a rather unsettling sense of irony Don MacAskill's gleeful blog posts about Sun acquiring MySQL, because Sun is a company that actually listens to it's customers!
He's right you know ... that really must be a good feeling to have! What a shame that we can't all share in that same sense of optimisim ...
With the American economy rapidly sliding towards a recession, I would have thought that diversifying beyond the US dollar would have been the absolutely BEST thing you could have done?
Still ... I suppose that it's not ALL bad news for us International Plebs™ ...
The more the US dollar slides, the cheaper we can get all our photos done!
Goooooo greenback go ...
--David Tomic
www.davidtomic.com
After my customer first had an issue with not being able to click the button for copying the shipping address from billing address (I reported this months ago and it was seemingly fixed, but the same thing happened yesterday), I now have a complaint about the USD$ to add!
"All done, but didnt not know I was paying for them in USA dollars!!!! Till the e mail came back to me to say all done. Arent you in Christchurch? I am in Christchurch every second week so dont even need to send them... Why are we paying in USA dollars not NZ dollars? Debbie"
I did have a comment in the gallery description "Please note all prices are in $USD" for 1 of the 2 galleries she ordered from, but apparently that's not good enough.
As for this customer, I've emailed her and volunteered either a refund or a free 4mp image of all the images she ordered - but the embarassment is worse. I screwed up on one gallery by not noting the $USD (It was a gallery from about a year ago) but even with the comment in the recent gallery description, it was missed.
I know SM won't give any indication if they're working on any new features, but on the offchance that a pang of guilt for not implementing SOMETHING helpful in relation to this occurs, here are a couple of hopefully simple suggestions. Either of them would help a little bit, first one's better.
1) Provide a currency selection in the cart, and list BESIDE the official $USD, something like "(approx $11.25NZD at 21/01/08)" and link that whole comment to XE.com. Also you'd need a comment on the page that local currencies are indicative only, and that all transactions are in USD...
2) PLEASE, at the very least, place "$USD" beside EVERY INSTANCE OF A DOLLAR VALUE ON YOUR SITE! I have to ask you, please get one of your coders to give you an opinion about how hard that would be. Please please please at least explain why what would be so hard. It WOULD prevent issues of the surprise billing like I got above.
Unless something gets done here, I'm going to include in large text "ALL PRICES IN $USD ONLY" in red text on my banner, and put that text in capitals, FIRST, on all my gallery descriptions"...
I honestly don't think you understand over there in the US, how embarassing and crazy it seems to explain that I can only sell photos using $USD.
Sorry I had to vent, but please at least consider hacking in the "$USD" display beside dollar values - the estimated local currency would be even better.
Cheers - Neil Gardner
www.nzsnaps.com (BEWARE! All prices in $USD only!)
http://www.nzsnaps.com (talkiet.smugmug.com)