New website: Foreign currency

I have my currency display set to SEK. There is a simple reason for this: although I know that $1 is about 7 SEK, when I see the price $100 my brain doesn't think 700, it thinks 100. So everything looks an awful lot cheaper than it really is. I need the SEK display to keep me at least somewhat grounded in actual financial reality. Also, *7 isn't the easiest calculation to do in your head.

But the new website is even more deceptive when it comes to foreign currency than the old one was:

Order History: You have absolutely no idea how many SEK I payed for a particular resource, since you don't charge in SEK. The figure shouldn't be there.
Open Orders: You have absolutely no idea how many SEK I will have to pay for a particular resource, since, again, you don't charge in SEK, and you probably have even less idea than I have what the exchange rate will be in a year or two. The SEK figure should be in parenthesis, with the USD figure before it.
Product pages: The main price should always be in USD, since that is what you intend to charge. The SEK price should be the one in smaller font and within parenthesis, to make it clear that it is there only as an aid.
Prepub and CP pages: the same.
CP bidding charts: the bidding must be shown in USD, preferably with SEK in parenthesis below. If the bid is shown in SEK alone, as it is for the moment, you take for granted that that is what you're going to be charged. If someone bids 600 SEK when the SEK is strong, and then 2 years later, when the product ships and the SEK is weak, is charged 800 SEK, he or she is not going to be happy! Also, I don't know what American law says, but in Sweden you would be legally bound not to charge more than the price the customer saw when he/she ordered, which means you would end up with $75 instead of the $100 you expected.
I don't know what currency converter you use, but it's not good. The SEK prices you show are constantly too low. There is no way I can get an exchange rate like that.
Beside the little box where you choose your currency display, there needs to be an explanation, stating that this is only to aid us; charging will always be in USD.

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Comments

Graham Owen

This problem occurred on the old site a while back and was quickly fixed. I agree that it is misleading and unfortunately is another example of a feature that seems good to a developer not working for a real user.

fgh

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/189284#Comment_189284

This problem occurred on the old site a while back and was quickly fixed.

Which particular problem are you referring to? At least half of them were present at the old site as well, and never received any fixes that I saw.

Graham Owen

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/189293#Comment_189293

Which particular problem are you referring to?

The way that your local currency is displayed as the primary even when though it is not the real price. When they implemented this on the old site the way that it currently is on the new site I set my currency to $ rather than £ until it was fixed. As we actually buy in $ I agree that this must always be the price quoted and any conversion is merely a guideline.

Dave Hooton

In my case, just replace SEK with AUD! Additional comments below:-

Order History: You have absolutely no idea how many SEK I payed for a particular resource, since you don't charge in SEK. The figure shouldn't be there.
Open Orders: You have absolutely no idea how many SEK I will have to pay for a particular resource, since, again, you don't charge in SEK, and you probably have even less idea than I have what the exchange rate will be in a year or two. The SEK figure should be in parenthesis, with the USD figure before it.

I wouldn't mind both currencies in Order History if it reflected the conversion rate at the time!

I don't know what currency converter you use, but it's not good. The SEK prices you show are constantly too low. There is no way I can get an exchange rate like that.

They need to add an overseas taxation fee - roughly 3%.

fgh

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/189302#Comment_189302

The way that your local currency is displayed as the primary even when though it is not the real price. When they implemented this on the old site the way that it currently is on the new site I set my currency to $ rather than £ until it was fixed.

I can't remember exactly where which currency was primary anymore, but I've got copies of the old Pre-Pub Orders page in front of me, and there it was certainly not fixed: SEK is primary, USD in parenthesis. Though even that was better than how it is now.

I wouldn't mind both currencies in Order History if it reflected the conversion rate at the time!

But they don't have the conversion rate! They have no idea what rate my bank used.

They need to add an overseas taxation fee - roughly 3%.

Taxation fee???

Mark Barnes

The SEK prices you show are constantly too low. There is no way I can get an exchange rate like that.

I agree that the primary currency should be USD as that's what's actually charged. But I don't agree with the exchange rate issue. You're right that most banks give users a poor exchange rate, but that's not Logos' problem. xe.com is currently giving a rate that is almost identical to Logos', and that's pretty much an official rate. What you'll probably find is that your bank is charging you a fee on top of that rate (sounds like 3% in David's case). You can find out what your bank is charging using this clever tool.

However, not all banks or credit card vendors do this. For myself, I deliberately have the only British credit card that doesn't charge a fee for foreign exchange transactions, and thus Logos' rates are almost exactly what I pay.

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/189302#Comment_189302

I wouldn't mind both currencies in Order History if it reflected the conversion rate at the time!

Historic rates are available if Logos are prepared to pay for them. There's probably more important things to sort out though!

David Wilson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/189330#Comment_189330

Probably not a good idea to try to go back in history and get the exchange rate for each past transaction, BUT, it should be possible to capture and keep the actual exchange rate on the day future transactions go through (they previously varied with subsequent exchange rate changes).