Whether you’re trading in English Sterling, US Dollars or the Chinese Yen, it’s important that your customer is able to purchase from you in their desired currency. This is where multi-currency helps. Multi currency on Shopify has, up until recently, been for Plus merchants only.

Last week, multi-currency became available to all subscription levels on Shopify. In this article we’ll discuss what multi-currency is, why it’s important and how it can help your online business expand.

What is multi-currency?

In a nutshell, multi-currency is the ability to sell your products in the customers foreign currency. All while still taking the correct payment for your goods in your native currency. To the customer this allows them to seamlessly change the currency of your store as if it was a local store.

An example of this might be a French customer browsing a UK store. They have the option on the front-end of the site to select which currency they want to view the pricing in. They select Euros, which allows them to see exactly what will be debited from their card.

At the checkout the customer isn’t getting any surprises and will proceed to the checkout. The merchant will receive the right amount of money in Sterling Pounds credited to their account.

Why have multi-currency on your store?

In the guide to internationalisation, we discussed how important it is to make your customers feel at home online. This means making as much of the site as native as possible, including the currency. If your customer has to go back and forth between a currency converter to work out if they’re getting a good deal online, then they’re likely to drop off. By having an easy to use currency switcher on your site, you’ll likely increase the conversion rates of overseas traffic.

While multi-currency is a great conversion tool it also makes your brand and your store appear more authoritative. As brands grow it becomes more important to become authoritative. Authority in any market instantly makes you become trustworthy which helps increase your social following, grow an email list, retain customers and ultimately sell more. By adding the multi-currency functionality to your site, you’re showing that you’re investing in your customers.

How to enable multi-currency?

Multi-currency is now available on all subscription levels of Shopify and Shopify Plus, which means you can start today! However, there are some limitations to it before you get started;

1. Multi-currency can only be used with Shopify Payments
2. Custom rounding rules are only available on Plus
3. Currently a lot themes don’t include a currency selector.

Step 1: Enable multi-currency

• Go to the admin and head over to Settings > Payment Providers.
• Once in there, click on Manage. 
• In the Multiple Currencies area, click on the currencies you want to enable.
• Click Save

Step 2: Enable a Currency Selector

Unfortunately, not all Shopify themes will come preloaded with a currency switcher. However, with a bit of code it’s relatively straight forward to add a currency selector. Our team of developers are well versed in adding currency selectors to Shopify stores, so get in touch if you need an extra hand.

Step 3: View Currencies and Test

• Go to the admin and head over to Settings > Payment Providers
• Once here click on Edit and go to the Enabled Currencies section
• Click on the currency you want to view and click on View on Online Store. 

Once you’ve done that and tested all the currencies to make sure the prices are as you expect them to be then it’s time to go live. It’s a relatively straight forward process but it can add so much more value to your current store offering. If you’re delivering outside of your native country to international customers, I would definitely recommend setting this up.